FRENZIED FICTION 



BY STEPHEN LEACOCK 

FURTHER FOOLISHNESS 

BEHIND THE BEYOND 

NONSENSE NOVELS 

LITERARY LAPSES 

SUNSHINE SKETCHES 

ARCADIAN ADVENTURES 
WITH THE IDLE RICH 

ESSAYS AND LITERARY 
STUDIES 

MOONBEAMS FROM THE 
LARGER LUNACY 



// 



FRENZIED 
.-. FICTION.-.-^ 



BY STEPHEN LEACOCK 

AUTHOR OF "further FOOLISHNESS," 

"nonsense novels," "literary lapses," etc. 



NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
TORONTO: S. B. GUNDY : MCMXVIII 






Copyright, I9i7» 
By John Lane CouPAinr 



^y2£ 



QEC27I9I7 



Printed by 

Prospect Press 

New York., U. S. A. 



©aA479691 



CONTENTS 



CHAFTBK PAGE 

I My Revelations as a Spy .... 9 

II Father Knickerbocker — ^A Fantasy . 26 

III The Prophet in Our Midst ... 47 

IV Personal Adventures in the Spirit 

World 57 

V The Sorrows of a Summer Guest . 76 

VI To Nature and Back Again ... 96 

VII The Cave Man As He Is . . . . 113 
VIII Ideal Interviews: 

1. With a European Prince , . . 128 

2. With Our Greatest Actor . . . 137 

3. With Our Greatest Scientist . . 146 

4. With Our Typical Novelists . .158 
IX The New Education 170 

X The Errors op Santa Claus ... 182 

XI Lost in New York 190 

XII This Strenuous Age 199 

XIII The Old, Old Story of How Five Men 

Went Fishing 206 

XIV Back from the Land 221 

XV The Perplexity Column .... 238 

XVI Simple Stories of Success or How to 

Succeed in Life 243 

XVII In Dry Toronto 256 

XVIII Merry Christmas 276 

5 



FRENZIED FICTION 



I— My Revelations as a Spu 

N many people the very name "Spy" excites 
a shudder of apprehension; we Spies, in 
fact, get quite used to being shuddered 
at. None of us Spies mind it at all. 
Whenever I enter a hotel and register myself 
as a Spy I am quite accustomed to see a thrill 
of fear run round the clerks, or clerk, behind 
the desk. 

Us Spies or We Spies — for we call ourselves 
both — are thus a race apart. None know us. 
All fear us. Where do we live? Nowhere. 
Where are we? Everywhere. Frequently we 
don't know ourselves where we are. The se- 
cret orders that we receive come from so high 
up that it is often forbidden to us even to ask 
where we are. A friend of mine, or at least 
a Fellow Spy — us spies have no friends — one 
of the most brilliant men in the Hungarian 
Secret Service, once spent a month in New York 

9 



Frenzied Fiction 



under the impression that he was in Winnipeg. 
If this happened to the most brilliant, think of 
the others. 

All, I say, fear us. Because they know and 
have reason to know our power. Hence, in 
spite of the prejudice against us, we are able 
to move everywhere, to lodge in the best hotels, 
and enter any society that we wish to penetrate. 

Let me relate an incident to Illustrate this : A 
month ago I entered one of the largest of the 
New York hotels which I will merely call the 
B. hotel without naming it : to do so might blast 
it. We spies, in fact, never name a hotel. At 
the most we indicate It by a number known only 
to ourselves, such as i, 2, or 3. 

On my presenting myself at the desk the clerk 
Informed me that he had no room vacant. I 
knew this of course to be a mere subterfuge; 
whether or not he suspected that I was a spy I 
cannot say. I was muffled up, to avoid recog- 
nition, in a long overcoat with the collar turned 
up and reaching well above my ears, while the 
black beard and the moustache, that I had 
slipped on In entering the hotel, concealed my 

10 



My Revelations as a Spy 



face. "Let me speak a moment to the mana- 
ger," I said. When he came I beckoned him 
aside and taking his ear in my hand I breathed 
two words into it. "Good heavens !" he gasped, 
while his face turned as pale as ashes. "Is it 
enough?" I asked. "Can I have a room, or 
must I breathe again?" "No, no," said the 
manager, still trembling. Then, turning to the 
clerk: "Give this gentleman a room," he said, 
"and give him a bath." 

What these two words are that will get a 
room in New York at once I must not divulge. 
Even now, when the veil of secrecy is being 
lifted, the International interests involved are 
too complicated to permit it. Suffice it to say 
that if these two had failed I know a couple of 
others still better. 

I narrate this incident, otherwise trivial, as 
indicating the astounding ramifications and the 
ubiquity of the international spy system. A 
similar illustration occurs to me as I write. I 
was v/alking the other day with another gentle- 
man — on upper B, way between the T. Building 
and the W. Garden. 

II 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Do you see that man over there?" I said, 
pointing from the side of the street on which 
we were walking on the sidewalk to the other 
side opposite to the side that we were on. 

"The man with the straw hat?" he asked. 
"Yes, what of him?" 

"Oh, nothing," I answered, "except that he's 
a Spy!" 

"Great heavens !" exclaimed my acquaintance 
leaning up against a lamppost for support. "A 
Spy! How do you know that ? What does it 
mean?" 

I gave a quiet laugh — we spies learn to laugh 
very quietly. "Ha!" I said, "that is my secret, 
my friend. Verhum sap'ientius! Che sara 
saraf Yodel doodle doo!" 

My acquaintance fell in a dead faint upon 
the street. I watched them take him away in 
an ambulance. Will the reader be surprised to 
learn that among the white-coated attendants 
who removed him I recognised no less a person 
than the famous Russian spy Poulispantzoff. 
What he was doing there I could not tell. No 
doubt his orders came from so high up that he 

12 



My Revelations as a Spy 



himself did not know. I had seen him only twice 
before — once when we were both disguised as 
Zulus at Buluwayo, and once in the interior of 
China, at the time when Poulispantzoff made 
his secret entry into Thibet concealed in a tea- 
case. He was inside the tea-case when I saw 
him; so at least I was informed by the coolies 
who carried it. Yet I recognised him instantly. 
Neither he nor I, however, gave any sign of 
recognition other than an imperceptible move- 
ment of the outer eyelid. (We spies learn to 
move the outer lid of the eye so Imperceptibly 
that it cannot be seen.) Yet after meeting 
Poulispantzoff in this way I was not surprised to 
read in the evening papers a few hours after- 
ward that the uncle of the young King of Slam 
had been assassinated. The connection be- 
tween these two events I am unfortunately not 
at liberty to explain; the consequences to the 
Vatican would be too serious. I doubt If It 
could remain top-side up. 

These, however, are but passing Incidents In 
a life filled with danger and excitement. They 
v/ould have remained unrecorded and unre- 
13 



Frenzied Fiction 



vealed, like the rest of my revelations, were it 
not that certain recent events have to some ex^ 
tent removed the seal of secrecy from my lips. 
The death of a certain royal sovereign makes it 
possible for me to divulge things hitherto undi- 
vulgible. Even now I can only tell a part, a 
small part, of the terrific things that I know. 
When more sovereigns die I can divulge more. 
I hope to keep on divulging at intervals for 
years. But I am compelled to be cautious. My 
relations with the Wilhelmstrasse, with Down- 
ing Street and the Quai d'Orsay, are so inti- 
mate, and my footing with the Yildiz Kiosk and 
the Waldorf-Astoria and Childs' Restaurants 
are so delicate, that a single faux pas might 
prove to be a false step. 

It is now seventeen years since I entered the 
Secret Service of the G. empire. During this 
time my activities have taken me into every 
quarter of the globe, at times even into even 
eighth or sixteenth of it. It was I who first 
brought back word to the Imperial Chancellor 
of the existence of an Entente between England 
and France. ''Is there an entente?" he asked 

14 



Wly Revelations as a Spy 



me, trembling with excitement, on my arrival 
at the Wilhelmstrasse. "Your Excellency," I 
said, "there is." He groaned. "Can you 
stop it?" he asked. 

"Don't ask me," I said sadly. "Where must 
we strike?" demanded the Chancellor. "Fetch 
me a map," I said. They did so. I placed my 
finger on the map. "Quick, quick," said the 
Chancellor, "look where his finger is." They 
lifted it up. "Morocco !" they cried. I had 
meant it for Abyssinia but it was too late to 
change. That night the warship Panther sailed 
under sealed orders. The rest is history, or 
at least history and geography. 

In the same way it was I who brought word 
to the Wilhelmstrasse of the rapprochement be- 
tween England and Russia in Persia. "What 
did you find?" asked the Chancellor as I laid 
aside the Russian disguise in which I had trav- 
elled. "A Rapprochement!" I said. He 
groaned. "They seem to get all the best 
words," he said. 

I shall always feel, to my regret, that I am 
personally responsible for the outbreak of the 

15 



Frenzied Fiction 



present war. It may have had ulterior causes. 
But there is no doubt that It was precipitated 
by the fact that, for the first time in seventeen 
years, I took a six weeks' vacation in June and 
July of 1 9 14. The consequences of this care- 
less step I ought to have foreseen. Yet I took 
such precautions as I could. "Do you think," 
I asked, "that you can preserve the status quo 
for six weeks, merely six weeks, if I stop spying 
and take a rest?" "We'll try," they answered. 
"Remember," I said, as I packed my things, 
"keep the Dardanelles closed; have the Sandjak 
of Novi Bazaar properly patrolled, and let the 
Dobrudja remain under a modus vivendi till I 
come back." 

Two months later, while sitting sipping my 
coffee at a Kurhof in the Schwarzwald, I read 
In the newspapers that a German army had in- 
vaded France and was fighting the French, and 
that the English expeditionary force had crossed 
the Channel. "This," I said to myself, "means 
war." As usual, I was right. 

It is needless for me to recount here the life 
of busy activity that falls to a Spy In wartime. 

16 



My Revelations as a Spy 



It was necessary for me to be here, there and 
everywhere, visiting all the best hotels, water- 
ing-places, summer resorts, theatres, and places 
of amusement. It was necessary, moreover, to 
act with the utmost caution and to assume an 
air of careless indolence in order to lull suspi- 
cion asleep. With this end In view I made a 
practice of never rising till ten In the morningo 
I breakfasted with great leisure, and contented 
myself with passing the morning in a quiet 
stroll, taking care, however, to keep my ears 
open. After lunch I generally feigned a light 
sleep, keeping my ears shut. A table d'hote 
dinner, followed by a visit to the theatre, 
brought the strenuous day to a close. Few 
spies, I venture to say, worked harder than I 
did. 

It was during the third year of the war that 
I received a peremptory summons from the head 
of the Imperial Secret Service at Berlin, Baron 
FIsch von Gestern. "I want to see you," It 
read. Nothing more. In the life of a Spy one 
learns to think quickly, and to think Is to act. 
I gathered as soon as I received the despatch 
17 



Frenzied Fiction 



that for some reason or other Fisch von Ges- 
tern was anxious to see me, having, as I in- 
stantly inferred, something to say to me. This 
conjecture proved correct. 

The Baron rose at my entrance with military 
correctness and shook hands. 

"Are you willing," he inquired, "to under- 
take a mission to America?" 

"I am," I answered. 

"Very good. How soon can you start?" 

"As soon as I have paid the few bills that 
I owe in Berlin," I replied. 

"We can hardly wait for that," said my chief, 
"and In case it might excite comment. You 
must start to-night!" 

"Very good," I said. 

"Such," said the Baron, "are the Kaiser's or- 
ders. Here is an American passport and a 
photograph that will answer the purpose. The 
likeness is not great, but it is sufficient." 

"But," I objected, abashed for a moment, 
"this photograph is of a man with whiskers and 
I am, unfortunately, clean-shaven." 

"The orders are imperative," said Von Ges- 
i8 



My Revelations as a Spy 



tern, with official hauteur. "You must start 
to-night. You can grow whiskers this after- 
noon." 

"Very good," I replied. 

"And now to the business of your mission," 
continued the Baron. "The United States, as 
you have perhaps heard, is making war against 
Germany." 

"I have heard so," I replied. 

"Yes," continued Von Gestern. "The fact 
has leaked out, — ^how we do not know, — and is 
being widely reported. His Imperial Maj- 
esty has decided to stop the war with the 
United States." I bowed. 

"He intends to send over a secret treaty of 
the same nature as the one recently made with 
his recent Highness the recent Gzar of Russia. 
Under this treaty Germany proposes to give 
to the United States the whole of equatorial 
Africa and in return the United States is to 
give to Germany the whole of China. There 
are other provisions, but I need not trouble 
you with them. Your mission relates, not to 

19 



Frenzied Fiction 



the actual treaty, but to the preparation of the 
ground." I bowed again. 

"You are aware, I presume," continued the 
Baron, "that in all high international dealings, 
at least in Europe, the ground has to be pre- 
pared. A hundred threads must be unravelled. 
This the Imperial Government itself cannot 
stoop to do. The work must be done by agents 
like yourself. You understand all this already, 
no doubt?" I indicated my assent. 

"These, then, are your instructions," said the 
Baron, speaking slowly and distinctly, as if to 
impress his words upon my memory. "On your 
arrival in the United States you will follow the 
accredited methods that are known to be used 
by all the best spies of the highest diplomacy. 
You have no doubt read some of the books, al- 
most manuals of instruction, that they have 
written?" 

"I have read many of them," I said. 

"Very well. You will enter, that is to say, 
enter and move everywhere in the best society. 
Mark specially, please, that you must not only 

20 



My Revelations as a Spy 



enter it but you must move. You must, if I 
may put it so, get a move on." I bowed. 

"You must mix freely with the members of 
the Cabinet. You must dine with them. This 
is a most necessary matter and one to be kept 
well in mind. Dine with them often in such a 
way as to make yourself familiar to them. 
Will you do this?" 

"I will," I said. 

"Very good. Remember also that in order 
to mask your purpose you must constantly be 
seen with the most fashionable and most beau- 
tiful women of the American capital. Can you 
do this?" 

"Can I?" I said. 

"You must if need be" — and the Baron gave 
a most significant look which was not lost upon 
me — "carry on an intrigue with one or, better, 
with several of them. Are you ready for it?" 

"More than ready," I said. 

"Very good. But this is only a part. You 
are expected also to familiarise yourself with 
the leaders of the great financial interests. You 
are to put yourself on such a footing with them 

21 



Frenzied Fiction 



as to borrow large sums of money from them. 
Do you object to this?" 

"No," I said frankly, "I do not." 

"Good ! You will also mingle freely In Am- 
bassadorial and foreign circles. It would be 
well for you to dine, at least once a week, with 
the British Ambassador. And now one final 
word" — here Von Gestern spoke with singu- 
lar impressiveness — "as to the President of the 
United States." 

"Yes," I said. 

"You must mix with him on a footing of the 
most open-handed friendliness. Be at the 
White House continually. Make yourself in 
the fullest sense of the words the friend and 
adviser of the President. All this I think is 
clear. In fact, it is only what is done, as you 
know, by all the masters of international dip- 
lomacy." 

"Precisely," I said. 

"Very good. And then," continued the 
Baron, "as soon as you find yourself sufficiently 
en rapport with everybody — or I should say," 
he added in correction, for the Baron shares 

22 



My Revelations as a Spy 



fully in the present German horror of imported 
French words, "when you find yourself suffi- 
ciently in enggekniipfterverwandtschaft with 
everybody, you may then proceed to advance 
your peace terms. And now, my dear fellow," 
said the Baron, with a touch of genuine cor- 
diality, "one word more. Are you in need of 
money?" 

"Yes," I said. 

"I thought so. But you will find that you 
need it less and less as you go on. Meantime, 
good-bye, and best wishes for your mission." 

Such was, such is, in fact, the mission with 
which I am accredited. I regard it as by far 
the most important mission with which I have 
been accredited by the Wilhelmstrasse. Yet 
I am compelled to admit that up to the present 
it has proved unsuccessful. My attempts to 
carry it out have been baffled. There is some- 
thing perhaps in the atmosphere of this republic 
which obstructs the working of high diplomacy. 
For over five months now I have been waiting 
and willing to dine with the American Cabinet. 
They have not invited me. For four weeks I 
23 



Frenzied Fiction 



sat each night waiting in the J. hotel in Wash- 
ington with my suit on ready to be asked. They 
did not come near me. 

Nor have I yet received an intimation from 
the British Embassy inviting me to an informal 
lunch or to midnight supper with the Ambassa- 
dor. Everybody who knows anything of the 
inside working of the international spy system 
will realize that without these invitations one 
can do nothing. Nor has the President of the 
United States given any sign. I have sent word 
to him, in cipher, that I am ready to dine with 
him on any day that may be convenient to both 
of us. He has made no move in the matter. 

Under these circumstances an intrigue with 
any of the leaders of fashionable society has 
proved impossible. My attempts to approach 
them have been misunderstood — in fact, have 
led to my being invited to leave the J. hotel. 
The fact that I was compelled to leave it, ov/- 
ing to reasons that I cannot reveal, without pay- 
ing my account, has occasioned unnecessary and 
dangerous comm.ent. I connect it, in fact, with 
the singular attitude adopted by the B. hotel 
24 



My Mevelations as a Spy 



on my arrival in New York, ^o which I have 
already referred. 

I have therefore been compelled to fall back 
on revelations and disclosures. Here again 
I find the American atmosphere singularly un- 
congenial. I have offered to reveal to the 
Secretary of State the entire family history of 
Ferdinand of Bulgaria for fifty dollars. He 
says it is not worth it. I have offered to the 
British Embassy the inside story of the Abdi- 
cation of Constantine for five dollars. They 
say they know it and knew it before it hap- 
pened. I have offered, for little more than a 
nominal sum, to blacken the character of every 
reigning family in Germany. I am told that 
it Is not necessary. 

Meantime, as It Is Impossible to return to 
Central Europe, I expect to open either a fruit 
store or a peanut stand very shortly In this great 
metropolis. I imagine that many of my former 
colleagues v/ill soon be doing the same! 



25 



//. — Father Knickerbocker — 
A Fantasy 

T happened quite recently — I think it must 
have been on April the second of 19 17, — 
that I was making the long pilgrimage on 
a day-train from the remote place where 
I dwell to the city of New York. And as we 
drew near the city, and day darkened into night, 
I had fallen to reading from a quaint old copy 
of Washington Irving's immortal sketches of 
Father Knickerbocker and of the little town 
where once he dwelt. 

I had picked up the book I know not where. 
Very old it apparently was and made in Eng- 
land. For there was pasted across the flyleaf of 
It an extract from some ancient magazine or 
journal of a century ago, giving what was evi- 
dently a description of the New York of that 
day. 

From reading the book I turned — my head 
still filled with the vision of Father Knicker- 
26 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

bocker and Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown — to 
examine the extract. I read it in a sort of half- 
doze, for the dark had fallen outside, and the 
drowsy throbbing of the running train attuned 
one's mind to dreaming of the past. 

"The town of New York" — so ran the extract 
pasted in the little book — "is pleasantly situ- 
ated at the lower extremity of the Island of 
Manhattan. Its recent progress has been so 
amazing that it is now reputed, on good author- 
ity, to harbour at least twenty thousand souls. 
Viewed from the sea it presents, even at the 
distance of half a mile, a striking appearance 
owing to the number and beauty of its church 
spires which rise high above the roofs and fo- 
liage and give to the place its characteristically 
religious aspect. The extreme end of the island 
Is heavily fortified with cannon, commanding 
a range of a quarter of a mile, and forbidding 
all access to the harbour. Behind this Bat- 
tery a neat greensward affords a pleasant 
promenade where the citizens are accustomed 
to walk with their wives every morning after 
church." 

27 



Frenzied Fiction 



"How I should like to have seen it!" I mur- 
mured to m^^self as I laid the book aside for a 
moment — "the Battery, the harbour and the 
citizens walking with their wives, their own 
wives, on the greensward." 

Then I read on: 

"From the town itself a wide thoroughfare, 
the Albany Post Road, runs meandering north- 
ward through the fields. It is known for some 
distance under the name of the Broad Way, 
and is so wide that four moving vehicles are 
said to be able to pass abreast. The Broad 
Way, especially in the springtime when it is 
redolent with the scent of clover and apple- 
blossoms, is a favourite evening promenade for 
the citizens (with their wives) after church. 
Here they may be seen any evening strolling 
toward the high ground overlooking the Hud- 
son, their wives on one arm, a spyglass under 
the other, in order to view what they can see. 
Down the Broad Way may be seen moving also 
droves of young lambs with their shepherds, 
proceeding to the market, while here and there 
28 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

a goat stands quietly munching beside the road 
and gazing at the passers-by." 

"It seems," I muttered to myself as I read, 
"in some ways but little changed after all." 

"The town," so the extract continued, "is not 
without its amusements. A commodious theatre 
presents with great success every Saturday night 
the plays of Shakespeare alternating with 
sacred concerts; the New Yorker, indeed, is 
celebrated throughout the provinces for his love 
of amusement and late hours. The theatres do 
not come out until long after nine o'clock, while 
for the gayer habitues two excellent restaurants 
serve fish, macaroni, prunes and other delicacies 
till long past ten at night. The dress of the 
New Yorker is correspondingly gay. In the 
other provinces the men wear nothing but plain 
suits of a rusty black, whereas in New York 
there are frequently seen suits of brown, snuff- 
colour and even of pepper-and-salt. The cos- 
tumes of the New York women are equally dar- 
ing, and differ notably from the quiet dress of 
New England. 

"In fine, it Is commonly said in the provinces 
29 



Frenzied Fiction 



that a New Yorker can be recognised anywhere, 
with his wife, by their modish costumes, their 
easy manners and their wiUingness to spend 
money — two, three and even five cents being 
paid for the smallest service." 

"Dear me," I thought, as I paused a moment 
in my reading, *'so they had begun it even 
then." 

"The whole spirit of the place," the account 
continued, "has recently been admirably em- 
bodied in literary form by an American writer, 
Mr. Washington Irving (not to be confounded 
with George Washington). His creation of 
Father Knickerbocker is so lifelike that it may 
be said to embody the very spirit of New York. 
The New Yorkers of to-day are accustomed 
indeed to laugh at Mr. Irving's fancy and to 
say that Knickerbocker belongs to a day long 
since past. Yet those who know tell us that 
the image of the amiable old gentleman, kindly 
but irascible, generous and yet frugal, loving 
his town and seeing little beyond it, may be 
held once and for all to typify the spirit of 
30 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

the place, without reference to any particular 
time or generation." 

"Father Knickerbocker!" I murmured, as I 
felt myself dozing off to sleep, rocked by the 
motion of the car. "Father Knickerbocker — 
how strange if he could be here again and see 
the great city as we know it now! How dif- 
ferent from his day ! How I should love to go 
round New York and show it to him as it is." 

So I mused and dozed till the very rumble 
of the wheels seemed to piece together in little 
snatches — ' "Father Knickerbocker — Father 
Knickerbocker — the Battery — the Battery — the 
citizens walking with their wives, with their 
wives — their own wives" — until presently, I 
imagine, I must have fallen asleep altogether 
and knew no more till my journey was over and 
I found myself among the roar and bustle of 
the concourse of the Grand Central. 

And there, lo and behold, waiting to meet 
me, was Father Knickerbocker himself! I 
know not how it happened, by what queer freak 
of hallucination or by what actual miracle — 
let those explain it who deal in such things — 

31 



Frenzied Fiction 



but there he stood before me, with an out- 
stretched hand and a smile of greeting — Father 
Knickerbocker himself, the Embodied Spirit of 
New York. 

"How strange," I said. "I was just reading 
about you in a book on the train and imagining 
how much I should like actually to meet you 
and to show you round New York." 

The old man laughed in a jaunty way. 

"Show me round?" he said. "Why, my dear 
boy, / live here." 

"I know you did long ago," I said. 

"I do still," said Father Knickerbocker. 
"I've never left the place. I'll show you around. 
But wait a bit — don't carry that handbag. I'll 
get a boy to call a porter to fetch a man to 
take it." 

"Oh, I can carry it," I said; "it's a mere 
nothing." 

"My dear fellow," said Father Knicker- 
bocker, a little testily I thought, "I'm as demo- 
cratic and as plain and simple as any man in 
this city. But when it comes to carrying a hand- 
bag in full sight of all this crowd, why, as I 

32 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

said to Peter Stuyvesant about — about" — here 
a misty look seemed to come over the old gen- 
tleman's face — "about two hundred years ago 
— I'll be hanged if I will. It can't be done. 
It's not up to date." 

While he was saying this, Father Knicker- 
bocker had beckoned to a group of porters. 
"Take this gentleman's handbag," he said, "and 
you carry his newspapers, and you take his um- 
brella. Here's a quarter for you and a quarter 
for you and a quarter for you. One of you go 
in front and lead the way to a taxi." 

"Don't you know the way yourself?" I asked 
in a half-whisper. 

"Of course I do, but I generally like to walk 
with a boy in front of me. We all do. Only 
the cheap people nowadays find their own way." 

Father Knickerbocker had taken my arm 
and was walking along in a queer, excited fash- 
ion, senile and yet with a sort of forced youth- 
fulness in his gait and manner. 

"Now then," he said, "get into this taxi." 

"Can't we walk?" I asked. 
33 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Impossible," said the old gentleman. "It's 
five blocks to where we are going." 

As we took our seats I looked again at my 
companion, this time more closely. Father 
Knickerbocker he certainly was, yet somehow 
strangely transformed from my pictured fancy 
of the Sleepy Hollow days. His antique coat 
with its wide skirt had, it seemed, assumed a 
modish cut as if in imitation of the bell-shaped 
spring overcoat of the young man about town. 
His three-cornered hat was set at a rakish angle 
till it looked almost like an up-to-date fedora. 
The great stick that he used to carry had some- 
how changed itself into the curved walking-stick 
of a Broadway lounger. The solid old shoes 
with their wide buckles were gone. In their 
place he wore narrow slippers of patent leather 
of which he seemed inordinately proud, for he 
had stuck his feet up ostentatiously on the seat 
opposite. His eye followed my glance toward 
his shoes. 

"For the fox-trot," he said, "the old ones 
were no good. Have a cigarette? These are 
Armenian, or would you prefer a Honolulan or 
34 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

a Nigerian? Now," he resumed, when we had 
lighted our cigarettes, "what would you like to 
do first? Dance the tango? Hear some Ha- 
waiian music, drink cocktails, or what?" 

"Why, what I should like most of all, Father 
Knickerbocker " 

But he interrupted me. "There's a devilish 
fine woman ! Look, the tall blonde one ! Give 
me blondes every time !" Here he smacked his 
lips. "By gad, sir, the women in this town seem 
to get finer every century. What were you 
saying?" 

"Why, Father Knickerbocker," I began, but 
he interrupted me again. 

"My dear fellow," he said. "May I ask you 
not to call me Father Knickerbocker?" 

"But I thought you were so old," I said 
humbly. 

"Old! Mtold! Oh, I don't know. Why, 
dash it, there are plenty of men as old as I am 
dancing the tango here every night. Pray call 
me, if you don't mind, just Knickerbocker, or 
simply Knicky — most of the other boys call 
me Knicky. Now what's it to be?" 

35 



Frenzied Fiction 



■ "Most of all," Isald, "I should like to go to 
some quiet place and have a talk about the old 
days." 

"Right," he said. "We're going to just the 
place now — nice quiet dinner, a good quiet or- 
chestra — Hawaiian, but quiet — and lots of 
women." Here he smacked his lips again, and 
nudged me with his elbow. "Lots of women, 
bunches of them. Do you like women?" 

"Why, Mr. Knickerbocker," I said hesitat- 
ingly, "I suppose — I " 

The old man sniggered as he poked me again 
in the ribs. 

"You bet you do, you dog!" he chuckled. 
"We all do. For me, I confess it, sir, I can't 
sit down to dinner without plenty of women, 
stacks of them, all round me." 

Meantime the taxi had stopped. I was about 
to open the door and get out. 

"Wait, wait," said Father Knickerbocker, 

his hand upon my arm, as he looked out of the 

window. "I'll see somebody in a minute who'll 

let us out for fifty cents. None of us here ever 

36 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

get in or out of anything by ourselves. It's 
bad form. Ah! Here he is!" 

A moment later we had passed through the 
portals of a great restaurant, and found our- 
selves surrounded with all the colour and tu- 
mult of a New York dinner a la mode. A burst 
of wild music, pounded and thrummed out on 
ukuleles by a group of yellow men in Hawaiian 
costume, filled the room, helping to drown or 
perhaps only serving to accentuate the babel 
of talk and the clatter of dishes that arose on 
every side. Men in evening dress and women 
in all the colours of the rainbow, decollete to a 
degree, were seated at little tables, blowing 
blue smoke into the air, and drinking green- 
and-yellow drinks from glasses with thin stems. 
A troupe of cabaret performers shouted and 
leaped on a little stage at the side of the room, 
unheeded by the crowd. 

"Ha ! ha !" said Knickerbocker, as we drew 
in our chairs to a table, "some place, eh? 
There's a peach! Look at her! Or do you 
like better that lazy-looking brunette next to 
her?" 

37 



Frenzied Fiction 



Mr. Knickerbocker was staring about the 
room, gazing at the women with open 
effrontery, and a senile leer upon his face. I 
felt ashamed of him. Yet, oddly enough, no 
one about us seemed in the least disturbed. 

"Now, what cocktail will you have?" said 
my companion. "There's a new one this week 
— The Fantan, fifty cents each — will you have 
that? Right! Two Fantans. Now to eat — 
what would you like?" 

"May I have," I said, "a slice of cold beef 
and a pint of ale?" 

"Beef!" said Knickerbocker contemptuously. 
"My dear fellow, you can't have that. Beef 
is only fifty cents. Do take something reason- 
able. Try Lobster Newburg — or no, here's a 
more expensive thing — Filet Bourbon a, la 
something — I don't know what it is, but by 
gad, sir, it's three dollars a portion anyway." 

"All right," I said. "You order the dinner." 

Mr. Knickerbocker proceeded to do so, the 

head-waiter obsequiously at his side, and his 

long finger indicating on the menu everything 

38 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

that seemed most expensive and that carried the 
most incomprehensible name. 

When he had finished he turned to me again. 
"Now," he said, "let's talk." 

"Tell me," I said, "about the old days and 
the old cimes on Broadway." 

"Ah, yes," he answered, "the old days — ^you 
mean ten years ago before the Winter Garden 
was opened. We've been going ahead, sir, go- 
ing ahead. Why, ten years ago there was prac- 
tically nothing, sir, above Times Square, and 
look at it now." 

I began to realise that Father Knickerbocker, 
old as he was, had forgotten all the earlier 
times with which I associated his memory. 
There was nothing left but the cabarets, and 
the Gardens, the Palm Rooms and the ukuleles 
of to-day. Behind that his mind refused to 
travel. 

"Don't you remember," I asked, "the apple 
orchards and the quiet groves of trees that used 
to line Broadway long ago?" 

"Groves!" he said. "I'll show you a grove, 
a cocoanut grove," — here he winked over his 

39 



Frenzied Fiction 



wineglass in a senile fashion — "that has apple- 
trees beaten from here to Honolulu." Thus he 
babbled on. 

All through our meal his talk continued — of 
cabarets and dances, of fox-trots and midnight 
suppers, of blondes and brunettes, "peaches" 
and "dreams," and all the while his eye roved 
incessantly among the tables, resting on the 
women with a bold stare. At times he would 
indicate and point out for me some of what he 
called the "representative people" present. 

"Notice that man at the second table," he 
would whisper across to me; "he's worth all 
the way to ten millions : made it in government 
contracts; they tried to send him to the peni- 
tentiary last fall but they can't get him — he's 
too smart for them ! I'll introduce you to him 
presently. See the man with him? That's his 
lawyer — ^biggest crook in America, they say — 
we'll meet him after dinner." Then he would 
suddenly break off and exclaim: "Egad, sir, 
there's a fine bunch of them," as another bevj 
of girls came trooping out upon the stage. 
40 



Father Knicherhocker — A Fantasi/ 

"I wonder," I murmured, "if there Is noth- 
ing left of him but this? Has all the fine old 
spirit gone? Is it all drowned out in wine and 
suffocated in the foul atmosphere of luxury?" 

Then suddenly I looked up at my companion, 
and I saw to my surprise that his whole face 
and manner had altered. His hand was 
clenched tight on the edge of the table. His 
eyes looked before him — through and beyond 
the riotous crowd all about him — into vacancy, 
into the far past, back into memories that I 
thought forgotten. His face had altered. The 
senile, leering look was gone, and in its place 
the firm-set face of the Knickerbocker of a 
century ago. 

He was speaking In a strange voice, deep and 
strong. "Listen," he said, "listen. Do you 
hear it — there — far out at sea — ships' guns — 
listen — they're calling for help — ships' guns — 
far out at sea !" He had clasped me by the 
arm. "Quick, to the Battery, they'll need every 
man to-night, they'll . . ." 

Then he sank back into his chair. His look 
41 



Frenzied Fiction 



changed again. The vision died out of his 
eyes. 

"What was I saying?" he asked. "Ah, yes 
— this old brandy — a very special brand. They 
keep it for me here — a dollar a glass. They 
know me here," he added in his fatuous way — 
"all the waiters know me. The headwaiter 
always knows me the minute I come into the 
room — keeps a chair for me. Now try this 
brandy and then presently we'll move on and 
see what's doing at some of the shows." 

But somehow, in spite of himself, my com- 
panion seemed to be unable to bring himself 
fully back into the consciousness of the scene 
before him. The far-away look still lingered 
in his eyes. 

Presently he turned and spoke to me m a low, 
confidential tone. "Was I talking to myself 
a moment ago?" he asked. "Yes? Ah! I 
feared I was. Do you know, I don't mind tell- 
ing it to you — lately I've had a strange, queer 
feeling that comes over me at times, as if some- 
thing were happening — something, I don't 
know what. I suppose," he continued, with a 
42 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

false attempt at resuming his fatuous manner, 
"I'm going the pace a little too hard, eh ! 
Makes one fanciful' . . . but the fact is, at 
times" — he spoke gravely again — "I feel as if 
there were something happening, something 
coming . . ," 

*' Knickerbocker," I said earnestly, "Father 
Knickerbocker, don't you know that something 
is happening — that this very evening as we are 
sitting here in all this riot, the President of the 
United States is to come before Congress on 
the most solemn mission that ever . . ." 

But my speech fell unheeded. Knicker- 
bocker had picked up his glass again and was 
leering over it at a bevy of girls dancing upon 
the stage. 

"Look at that girl," he interrupted quickly, 
"the one dancing at the end — what do you think 
of her, eh? Some peach!" 

Knickerbocker broke off suddenly. For at 

this moment our ears caught the sound of a 

noise, a distant tumult, as it were, far down the 

street and growing nearer. The old man had 

43 



Frenzied Fiction 



drawn himself erect in his seat, his hand to his 
ear, listening as he caught the sound. 

"Out on the Broad Way," he said, in- 
stinctively calling it by its ancient name as if 
a flood of memories were upon him. "Do you 
hear it? — listen — listen — what is it? I've 
heard that sound before — I've heard every 
sound on the Broad Way these two centuries 
back — what is it? I seem to know it!" 

The sound and tumult as of running feet and 
of many voices crying came louder from the 
street. The people at the tables had turned 
in their seats to listen. The music of the or- 
chestra had stopped. The waiters had thrown 
back the heavy curtains from the windows and 
the people were crowding to them to look out 
into the street. Knickerbocker had risen in his 
place, his eyes looked toward the windows, but 
his gaze was fixed on vacancy as with one who 
sees a vision passing. 

"I know the sound," he cried. "I see it all 
again. Look, can't you see them? It's Massa- 
chusetts soldiers marching South to the war — 
can't you hear the beating of the drums and 
44 



Father Knickerbocker — A Fantasy 

the shrill calling of the fife — the regiments 
from the North, the first to come. I saw them 
pass, here where we are sitting, sixty years 
ago " 

Knickerbocker paused a moment, his hand 
still extended in the air, and then with a great 
light upon his face he cried : 

"I know it now ! I know what it meant, the 
feeling that has haunted me — the sounds I kept 
hearing — the guns of the ships at sea and the 
voices calling in distress ! I know now. It 
means, sir, it means . . ." 

But as he spoke a great cry came up from 
the street and burst in at the doors and win- 
dows, echoing in a single word: 

WAR ! WAR ! The message of the Presi- 
dent Is for WAR ! 

"War!" cried Father Knickerbocker, rising 
to his full height, stem and majestic and shout- 
ing in a stentorian tone that echoed through the 
great room. 

"War ! War ! To your places, every one of 
you ! Be done with your idle luxury ! Out with 
the glare of your lights ! Begone you painted 
45 



Frenzied Fiction 



women and worthless men! To your places 
every man of you ! To the Battery ! Man the 
guns — stand to it, every one of you for the 
defence of America — for our New York, New 
York " 

Then with the sound "New York, New 
York" still echoing in my ears I woke up. The 
vision of my dream was gone. I was still on 
the seat of the car where I had dozed asleep, 
the book upon my knee. The train had arrived 
at the depot and the porters were calling into 
the doorway of the car — ^"New York, New 
York." 

All about me was the stir and hubbub of the 
great depot. But loud over it all was heard 
the call of the newsboys crying "WAR ! WAR ! 
The President's message is for WAR! Late 
extra! W^AR! WAR!" 

And I knew that a great nation had cast aside 
the bonds of sloth and luxury, and was girding 
itself to join in the fight for the free democracy 
of all mankind. 



46 



Ill— The Prophet in Our Midst 



"^HE Eminent Authority looked round 
at the Uttle group of us seated about 
him at the club. He was telling us, or 
beginning to tell us, about the out- 
come of the war. It was a thing we wanted to 
know. We were listening attentively. We felt 
that we were "getting something." 

"I doubt very much," he said, "whether 
Downing Street realises the enormous power 
which the Quai d'Orsay has over the Yildiz 
Kiosk." 

"So do I," I said, "what Is it?" 

But he hardly noticed the interruption. 
"You've got to remember," he went on, "that 
from the point of view of the Yildiz, the Wil- 
helmstrasse is just a thing of yesterday." 

"Quite so," I said. 

"Of course," he added, "the Ballplatz Is quite 
different." 

"Altogether different," I admitted. "And 

47 



Frenzied Fiction 



mind you," he said, "the Ballplatz itself can be 
largely moved from the Quirinal through the 
Vatican." 

"Why of course it can," I agreed, with as 
much relief in my tone as I could put into it. 
After all, what simpler way of moving the Ball- 
platz than that? 

The Eminent Authority took another sip at 
his tea, and looked round at us through his spec- 
tacles. It was I who was taking on myself to 
do most of the answering, because it was I who 
had brought him there and invited the other 
men to meet him. 

"He's coming round at five," I had said, "do 
come and have a cup of tea and meet him. He 
knows more about the European situation and 
the probable solution than any other man liv- 
ing." Naturally they came gladly. They 
wanted to know, — as everybody wants to know, 
— how the war will end. They were just ordi- 
nary plain men like myself. 

I could see that they were a little mystified, 
perhaps disappointed. They would have liked, 
just as I would, to ask a few plain questions, 
48 



The Prophet in Our Midst 

such as, can the Italians knock the stuff out of 
the Austrians? Are the Roumanians getting 
licked or not? How many submarines has Ger- 
many got, anyway? Such questions, in fact, 
as we are accustomed to put up to one another 
every day at lunch and to answer out of the 
morning paper. As it was, we didn't seem to 
be getting anywhere. 

No one spoke. The silence began to be even 
a little uncomfortable. It was broken by my 
friend Rapley, who is in wholesale hardware 
and who has all the intellectual bravery that 
goes with it. He asked the Authority straight 
out the question that we all wanted to put. 

"Just what do you mean by the Ballplatz? 
What is the Ballplatz?" 

The Authority smiled an engaging smile. 
"Precisely," he said, "I see your drift exactly. 
You say what is the Ballplatz? I reply quite 
frankly that it is almost impossible to answer. 
Probably one could best define it as the driving 
power behind the Ausgleich." 

"I see," said Rapley. 

"Though the plain fact is that ever since 
the Herzegovinian embroglio the Ballplatz is 

49 



Frenzied Fiction 



little more than a counterpoise to the Wilhelm- 
strasse." 

"Ah!"saidRapley. 

"Indeed, as everybody knows, the whole re- 
lationship of the Ballplatz with the Nevski 
Prospekt has emanated from the Wilhelm- 
strasse." 

This was a thing which personally I had not 
known. But I said nothing. Neither did the 
other men. They continued smoking, looking 
as innocent as they could. 

"Don't misunderstand me," said the Author- 
ity, "when I speak of the Nevski Prospekt. I 
am not referring in any way to the Tsarskoe 
Selo." 

"No, no," we all agreed. 

"No doubt there were, as we see it plainly 
now, undercurrents in all directions from the 
Tsarskoe Selo." We all seemed to suggest by 
our attitude that these undercurrents were suck- 
ing at our very feet. 

"But the Tsarskoe Selo," said the Authority, 
"is now definitely eliminated." 

We were glad of that; we shifted our feet 
back Into attitudes of ease. 
50 



The Prophet in Our Midst 

I felt that it was time to ask a leading ques- 
tion. 

"Do you think," I said, "that Germany will 
be broken up by the war?" 

"You mean Germany in what sense? Are 
you thinking of Preuszenthum? Are you re- 
ferring to Junkerismus?" 

"No," I said, quite truthfully, "neither of 
them." 

"Ah," said the Authority, "I see; you mean 
Germany as a Souverantat embodied in a 
Reichsland." 

"That's it," I said. 

"Then it's rather hard," said the Eminent 
Authority, "to answer your questibn in plain 
terms. But I'll try. One thing, of course, is 
absolutely certain, Mittel-Europa goes over- 
board." 

"It does, eh?" 

"Oh, yes, absolutely. This is the end of 
Mittel-Europa. I mean to say, — here we've 
had Mittel-Europa, that is, the Mittel-Europa 
idea, as a sort of fantasmus in front of Teuton- 
ism ever since Koeniggratz." 

51 



Frenzied Fiction 



The Authority looked all round us in that 
searching way he had. We all tried to look 
like men seeing a fantasmus and disgusted at it. 

"So you see," he went on, "Mittel-Europa is 
done with." 

"I suppose it is," I said. I didn't know just 
whether to speak with regret or not. I heard 
Rapley murmur, **I guess so." 

"And there is not a doubt," continued the 
Authority, "that when MIttel-Europa goes, 
Grossdeutschthum goes with it." 

"Oh, sure to," we all murmured. 

"Well, then, there you are, — what is the re- 
sult for Germany, — why the thing's as plain 
as a pikestaff, — in fact you're driven to it by the 
sheer logic of the situation, — there is only one 
outcome, — " 

The Authority was speaking very deliber- 
ately. He even paused at this point and lighted 
a cigarette, while we all listened breathlessly. 
We felt that we had got the thing to a focus 
at last. 

"Only one outcome, — a Staatenbund." 
52 



The Prophet in Our Midst 

"Great heavens," I said, "not a Staaten- 
bund I" 

"Undoubtedly," said the Authority, puffing^ 
quietly at his cigarette, as if personally he 
wouldn't lift a finger to stop the Staatenbund if 
he could, "that's the end of it, a Staatenbund. 
In other words, we are back where we were 
before the Vienna Congress !" 

At this he chuckled heartily to himself: sa 
the rest of us laughed too: the thing was toO' 
absurd. But the Authority, who was a man of 
nice distinctions and genuinely anxious to in- 
struct us, was evidently afraid that he had over- 
stated things a little. 

"Mind you," he said, "there'll be something 
left, — certainly the ZoUverein and either the 
Ausgleich or something very like it." 

All of the men gave a sort of sigh of relief. 
It was certainly something to have at least a 
sort of resemblance or appearance of the Aus- 
gleich among us. We felt that we were getting 
on. One could see that a number of the men 
were on the brink of asking questions. 

"What about Roumania," asked Nelles (he 
53 



Frenzied Fiction 



Is a banker and Interested In government 
bonds), "Is this the end of It?" 

"No," said the Authority, "It's not the end 
of Roumania, but it is the end of Roumanian 
Irredentlsmus." 

That settled Nelles. 

"What about the Turks?" asked Rapley. 

"The Turks, — or rather, I suppose it would 
be more proper to say, the Osmanll, as that is 
no doubt what you mean, — " (Rapley nodded.) 
"Well, speaking personally, I should say that 
there's no difficulty in a permanent settlement In 
that quarter. If I were drawing up the terms 
of a treaty of peace meant to be really lasting 
I should lay down three absolute bases ; the rest 
needn't matter — " 

The Authority paused a moment and then 
proceeded to count off the three conditions of 
peace on his fingers, — 

"These would be, first, the evacuation of the 
Sandjak; second, an international guarantee for 
the Capitulations, and third, for internal mat- 
ters, an arrangement along the lines of the ori- 
ginal firman of Midhat Pasha." 

54 



The Prophet in Our Midst 

A murmur of complete satisfaction went 
round the group. 

"I don't say," continued the Eminent Author- 
ity, "that there wouldn't be other minor mat- 
ters to adjust; but they would be a mere detail; 
you ask me, for instance, for a milice, or at 
least a gendarmerie, in the Albanian hinterland; 
very good, I grant it you at once. You retain, 
if you like, you abolish the Cypriotic suzerainty 
of the Porte, — all right. These are matters of 
indifference." 

We all assumed a look of utter indifference. 

"But what about the Dardanelles? Would 
you have them fixed so that ships could go 
through, or not?" asked Rapley. He is a plain 
man, not easily put down and liking a plain 
answer. . He got it. 

"The Dardanelles," said the Authority, 
"could easily be denationalized under a quadri- 
lateral guarantee to be made a pars materia of 
the pactum foederis." 

"That ought to hold them," I murmured. 
The Authority felt now that he had pretty well 
settled the map of Europe. 
55 



Frenzied Fiction 



He rose and shook hands with us all around 
very cordially. We did not try to detain him. 
We felt that time like his was too valuable to 
be wasted on things like us. . 

"Well, — I tell you," said Rapley, as we set- 
tled back into our chairs when the Great Au- 
thority had gone, — *'my own opinion, boys, is 
that the United States and England can trim 
Germany and Austria any day in the week and 
twice on Sunday." After which somebody else 
said, "I wonder how many of these submarines 
Germany has, anyway." And then we drifted 
back into the humbler kind of war talk that we 
have been carrying on for three years. 

But later, as we walked home together, Rap- 
ley said to me, "That fellow threw a lot of 
light on things in Europe, didn't he?" And 
I answered, "Yes." 

What liars we all are ! 



56 



IV, — Personal Adventures in the 
Spirit World 

DO not write what follows with the expec- 
tation of convincing or converting any- 
body. We Spiritualists — or Spiritists 
(we call ourselves both, or either) — 
never ask anybody to believe us. If they do, 
well and good. If not, all right. Our attitude 
simply is that facts are facts. There they are; 
believe them or not as you like. As I said the 
other night, in conversation with Aristotle and 
John Bunyan and George Washington and a 
few others, why should anybody believe us? 
Aristotle, I recollect, said that all that he wished 
was that everybody should know how happy he 
was; and Washington said that for his part, if 
people only knew how bright and beautiful It 
all was where he was, they would willingly, in- 
deed gladly, pay the mere dollar — itself only a 
nominal fee — that it cost to talk to him. Bun- 
57 



Frenzied Fiction 



yan, I remember, added that he himself was 
quite happy. 

But, as I say, I never ask anybody to believe 
me ; the more so as I was once an absolute scep- 
tic myself. As I see it now, I was prejudiced. 
The mere fact that spiritual seances and the 
services of a medium involved the payment of 
money condemned the whole thing in my eyes. 
I did not realise, as I do now, that these medii, 
like anybody else, have got to live; otherwise 
they would die and become spirits. 

Nor would I now place these disclosures be- 
fore the public were it not that I think that in 
the present crisis they will prove of value to the 
Allied cause. 

But let me begin at the beginning. My own 
conversion to spiritualism came about, like that 
of so many others, through the more-or-less 
casual remark of a Friend. 

Noticing me one day gloomy and depressed, 
this Friend remarked to me : "Have you any be- 
lief in Spiritualism?" Had it come from any 
one else, I should have turned the question aside 
with a sneer. 

58 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

But It so happens that I owe a great deal of 
gratitude to this particular Friend. It was he 
who, at a time when I was so afflicted with rheu- 
matism that I could scarcely leap five feet Into 
the air without pain, said to me one day quite 
casually: "Have you ever tried Pyro for your 
rheumatism?" One month later I could leap 
ten feet In the air (had I been able to) without 
the slightest malaise. The same man, I may 
add, hearing me one day exclaiming to myself: 
"Oh ! If there were anything that would re- 
move the stains from my clothes !" said to me 
very simply and quietly: "Have you ever 
washed them In Luxo?" It was he too who, 
noticing a haggard look on my face after break- 
fast one morning, Inquired Immediately what 
I had been eating for breakfast; after which, 
with a simplicity and directness which I shall 
never forget, he said: "Why not eat HuMPO?" 

Nor can I ever forget my feeling on another 
occasion when, hearing me exclaim aloud: "Oh! 
If there were only something invented for re- 
moving the proteins and amygdalolds from a 
carbonised diet and leaving only the pure nitro- 
59 



Frenzied Fiction 



genous life-giving elements!" seized my hand 
in his, and said in a voice thrilled with emotion : 
"There is! It has!" 

The reader will understand, therefore, that a 
question, or query, from such a Friend was not 
to be put lightly aside. When he asked: *'Do 
you believe in Spiritualism?" I answered with 
perfect courtesy: "To be quite frank, I do not." 

There was silence between us for a time, and 
then my Friend said: "Have you ever given it 
atrial?" 

I paused a moment, as the idea was a novel 
one. 

"No," I answered, "to be quite candid, I 
have not." 

Neither of us spoke for perhaps twenty min- 
utes after this, when my Friend said: "Have 
you anything against it?" 

I thought awhile and then: "Yes," I said, "I 
have." 

My Friend remained silent for perhaps half 
an hour. Then he asked: "What?" I medi- 
tated for some time. Then I said: 

"This — it seems to me that the whole thing 
60 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

Is done for money. How utterly unnatural it 
is to call up the dead — one's great-grandfather, 
let us say — and pay money for talking to him." 

"Precisely," said my Friend without a mo- 
ment's pause. "I thought so. Now suppose I 
could bring you into contact with the spirit 
world through a medium, or through different 
medii, without there being any question of 
money, other than a merely nominal fee — the 
money being, as it were, left out of count, and 
regarded as only, so to speak, nominal, some- 
thing given merely pro forma and ad interim. 
Under these circumstances, will you try the ex- 
periment?" 

I rose and took my Friend's hand. 

"My dear fellow," I said, "I not only will, 
but I shall." 

From this conversation dated my connection 
with Spiritualism, which has since opened for 
me a new world. 

It would be out of place for me to Indicate 
the particular address or the particular methods 
employed by the agency to which my Friend in- 
troduced me. I am anxious to avoid anything 
6i 



Frenzied Fiction 



approaching a commercial tinge in what I write. 
Moreover, their advertisement can be seen 
along with many others — all, I am sure, just as 
honourable and just as trustworthy — in the col- 
umns of any daily newspaper. As everybody 
knows, many methods are employed. The tap- 
ping of a table, the movement of a ouija board, 
or the voice of a trance medium, are only a 
few among the many devices by which the spir- 
its now enter into communication with us. But 
in my own case the method used was not only 
simplicity itself, but was so framed as to carry 
with it the proof of its own genuineness. One 
had merely to speak into the receiver of a tele- 
phone, and the voice of the spirit was heard 
through the transmitter as in an ordinary tele- 
phone conversation. 

It was only natural, after the scoffing remark 
that I had made, that I should begin with my 
great-grandfather. Nor can I ever forget the 
peculiar thrill that went through me when I 
was informed by the head of the agency that a 
tracer was being sent out for Great-grandfather 
to call him to the 'phone. 
62 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

Great-grandfather — let me do him this jus- 
tice — was prompt. He was there in three min- 
utes. Whatever his line of business was in the 
spirit world — and I was never able to learn 
it — he must have left it immediately and hur- 
ried to the telephone. Whatever later dis- 
satisfaction I may have had with Great-grand- 
father, let me state it fairly and honestly, he is 
at least a punctual man. Every time I called 
he came right away without delay. Let those 
who are inclined to cavil at the methods of the 
Spiritualists reflect how impossible it would be 
to secure such punctuality on anything but a 
basis of absolute honesty. 

In my first conversation with Great-grand- 
father I found myself so absurdly nervous at the 
thought of the vast gulf of space and time 
across which we were speaking that I perhaps 
framed my questions somewhat too crudely. 

"How are you, Great-grandfather?" I asked. 

His voice came back to me as distinctly as if 
he were in the next room : 

"I am happy, very happy. Please tell every- 
body that I am happy." 

63 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Great-grandfather," I said, "I will. I'll 
see that everybody knows It. Where are you, 
Great-grandfather ?" 

"Here," he answered, "beyond." 

"Beyond what?" 

"Here on the other side." 

"Side of which?" I asked. 

"Of the great vastness," he answered. "The 
other end of the Illimitable." 

"Oh, I see," I said, "that's where you are." 
We were silent for some time. It Is amazing 
how difficult it Is to find things to talk about 
with one's great-grandfather. For the life of 
me I could think of nothing better than : "What 
sort of weather have you been having?" 

"There Is no weather here," said Great- 
grandfather. "It's all bright and beautiful all 
the time.'* 

"You mean bright sunshine?" I said. 

"There is no sun here," said Great-grand- 
father. 

"Then how do you mean " I began. 

But at this moment the head of the agency 
tapped me on the shoulder to remind me that 
64 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

the two minutes' conversation for which I had 
deposited, as a nominal fee, five dollars, had 
expired. The agency was courteous enough 
to inform me that for five dollars more Great- 
grandfather would talk another two minutes. 

But I thought It preferable to stop for the 
moment. 

Now I do not wish to say a word against my 
own great-grandfather. Yet in the conversa- 
tions which followed on successive days I found 
him — how shall I put it? — unsatisfactory. He 
had been, when on this side — to use the term 
which we Spiritualists prefer — a singularly able 
man — an English judge ; so at least I have al- 
ways been given to understand. But somehow 
Great-grandfather's brain, on the other side, 
seemed to have got badly damaged. My own 
theory is that, living always in the bright sun- 
shine, he had got sunstroke. But I may wrong 
him. Perhaps It was locomotor ataxia that 
he had. That he was very, very happy where 
he was is beyond all doubt. He said so at ev- 
ery conversation. But I have noticed that 
feeble-minded people are often happy. He 
65 



Frenzied Fiction 



said, too, that he was glad to be where he was; 
and on the whole I felt glad that he was too. 
Once or twice I thought that possibly Great- 
grandfather felt so happy because he had been 
drinking: his voice, even across the great gulf, 
seemed somehow to suggest It. But on being 
questioned he told me that where he was there 
was no drink and no thirst, because It was all so 
bright and beautiful. I asked him If he meant 
that It was "bone-dry" like Kansas, or whether 
the rich could still get It? But he didn't answer. 

Our Intercourse ended In a quarrel. No 
doubt It was my fault. But It did seem to me 
that Great-grandfather, who had been one of 
the greatest English lawyers of his day, might 
have handed out an opinion. 

The matter came up thus: I had had an 
argument — It was In the middle of last winter 
— with some men at my club about the legal in- 
terpretation of the Adamson Law. The dis- 
pute grew bitter. "I'm right," I said, "and 
I'll prove It If you give me time to consult the 
authorities." 

6S 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

"Consult your great-grandfather!" sneered 
one of the men. 

"All right," I said, "I will." 

I walked straight across the room to the tele- 
phone and called up the agency. "Give me my 
great-grandfather," I said. "I want him right 
away." 

He was there. Good, punctual old soul, I'll 
say that for him. He was there. 

"Great-grandfather," I said, "I'm In a dis- 
cussion here about the constitutionality of the 
Adamson Law, Involving the power of Con- 
gress under the Constitution. Now, you re- 
member the Constitution when they made it. 
Is the law all right?" 

There was silence. 

"How does It stand, Great-grandfather?" I 
said. "Will It hold water?" 

Then he spoke. 

"Over here," he said, "there are no laws, 
no members of Congress and no Adamsons; it's 
all bright and beautiful and " 

"Great-grandfather," I said, as I hung up the 
67 



Frenzied Fiction 



receiver in disgust, "you are a Mutt!" I never 
spoke to him again. 

Yet I feel sorry for him, feeble old soul, 
flitting about in the Illimitable, and always so 
punctual to hurry to the telephone — so happy, 
so f eeble-witted and so courteous ; a better man, 
perhaps, take it all in all, than he was in life: 
lonely, too, it may be, out there in the Vast- 
ness. Yet I never called him up again. He is 
happy. Let him stay. 

Indeed, my acquaintance with the spirit world 
might have ended at that point but for the good 
oiEces, once more, of my Friend. 

"You find your great-grandfather a little 
slow, a little dull?" he said. "Well, then, if 
you want brains, power, energy, why not call 
up some of the spirits of the great men, some of 
the leading men, for Instance, of your great- 
grandfather's time?" 

"You've said it I" I exclaimed. "I'll call up 
Napoleon Bonaparte." 

I hurried to the Agency. 
68 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

"Is it possible," I asked, "for me to call up 
the Emperor Napoleon and talk to him?" 

Possible? Certainly. It appeared that 
nothing was easier. In the case of Napoleon 
Bonaparte the nominal fee had to be ten dol- 
lars in place of five; but it seemed to me that 
if Great-grandfather cost five, Napoleon Bona- 
parte at ten was cheapness itself. 

"Will it take long to get him?" I asked anx- 
iously. 

"We'll send out a tracer for him right away," 
they said. 

Like Great-grandfather, Napoleon was punc- 
tual. That I will say for him. If in any way 
I think less of Napoleon Bonaparte now than 
I did, let me at least admit that a more punc- 
tual, obliging, willing man I never talked with. 

He came in two minutes. "He's on the line 
now," they said. I took up the receiver, 
trembling, 

"Hello!" I called. "Est-ce que c'est VEm- 
pereur Napoleon a qui j'ai I'honneur de par- 
lerf 

"How's that?" said Napoleon. 
69 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Je demand si je suis en communication cwec 
VEmpereur Napoleon " 

"Oh!" said Napoleon, "that's all right; 
speak English." 

"What!" I said in surprise. "You know 
English? I always thought you couldn't speak 
a word of it." 

He was silent for a minute. Then he said: 

"I picked it up over here. It's all right. 
Go right ahead." 

"Well," I continued, "I've always admired 
you so much, your wonderful brain and genius, 
that I felt I wanted to speak to you and ask 
you how you are." 

"Happy," said Napoleon, "very happy," 

"That's good," I said, "that's fine! And 
how is it out there? All bright and beautiful, 

€h?" 

"Very beautiful," said the Emperor. 

"And just where are you," I continued. 
"Somewhere out in the Unspeakable, I sup- 
pose, eh?" 

"Yes," he answered, "out here beyond." 

"That's good," I said, "pretty happy, eh?" 
70 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

"Very happy," said Napoleon. "Tell every- 
body how happy I am." 

"I know," I answered, "I'll tell them all. 
But just now I've a particular thing to ask. 
We've got a big war on, pretty well the whole 
world in it, and I thought perhaps a few point- 
ers from a man like you " 

But at this point the attendant touched me 
on the shoaider. "Your time is up," he said. 

I was about to offer to pay at once for two 
minutes more when a better idea struck me. 
Talk with Napoleon? I'd do better than that. 
I'd call a whole War Council of great spirits, 
lay the war crisis before them and get the big- 
gest brains that the world ever produced to 
work on how to win the war. 

Whom should I have? Let me see! Napo- 
leon himself, of course. I'd bring him back. 
And for the sea business, the submarine prob- 
lem, I'd have Admiral Nelson. George Wash- 
ington, naturally, for the American end; for 
politics, say, good old Ben Franklin, the wisest 
old head that ever walked on American legs, 
and witty, too; yes, Franklin certainly, if only 

71 



Frenzied Fiction 



for his wit to keep the council from getting 
gloomy; Lincoln — honest old Abe — him cer- 
tainly I must have. Those and perhaps a few 
others. 

I reckoned that a consultation at ten dollars 
apiece with spirits of that class was cheap to the 
verge of the ludicrous. Their advice ought to 
be worth millions — ^yes, billions — to the cause. 

The agency got them for me without trou- 
ble. There is no doubt they are a punctual 
crowd, over there beyond in the Unthinkable. 

I gathered them all in and talked to them, all 
and severally, the payment, a merely nominal 
matter, being made, pro forma, In advance. 

I have in front of me In my rough notes the 
result of their advice. When properly drafted 
it will be, I feel sure, one of the most important 
state documents produced in the war. 

In the personal sense — I have to admit It — 
I found them just a trifle disappointing. Frank- 
lin, poor fellow, has apparently lost his wit. 
The spirit of Lincoln seemed to me to have 
none of that homely wisdom that he used to 
have. And It appears that we were quite mls- 
72 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

taken in thinking Benjamin Disraeli a brilliant 
man; it is clear to me now that he was dull — 
just about as dull as Great-grandfather, I 
should say. Washington, too. Is not at all the 
kind of man we thought him. 

Still, these are only personal impressions. 
They detract nothing from the extraordinary 
value of the advice given, which seems to me to 
settle once and forever any lingering doubt 
about the value of communications with the 
Other Side. 

My draft of their advice runs in part as fol- 
lows: 

The Spirit of Admiral Nelson, on being 
questioned on the submarine problem, holds 
that if all the men on the submarines v/ere 
where he is everything would be bright and 
happy. This seems to me an Invaluable hint. 
There Is nothing needed now except to put them 
there. 

The advice of the Spirit of Napoleon about 
the campaign on land seemed to me, If possible, 
of lower value than that of Nelson on the cam- 
paign at sea. It Is hardly conceivable that 
73 



Frenzied Fiction 



Napoleon has forgotten where the Marne is. 
But it may have changed since his day. At any 
rate, he says that if ever the Russians cross the 
Marne, all is over. Coming from such a mas- 
ter-strategist, this ought to be attended to. 

Franklin, on being asked whether the United 
States had done right in going into the war, 
said Yes ; asked whether the country could with 
honour have stayed out, he said No. There is 
guidance here for thinking men of all ranks. 

Lincoln is very happy where he is. So too, 
I was amazed to find, is Disraeli. In fact, it 
was most gratifying to learn that all of the great 
spirits consulted are very happy, and want 
everybody to know how happy they are. 
Where they are, I may say, it is all bright and 
beautiful. 

Fear of trespassing on their time prevented 
me from questioning each of them up to the full 
limit of the period contracted for. 

I understand that I have still to my credit 

at the agency five minutes' talk with Napoleon, 

available at any time, and similarly five minutes 

each with Franklin and Washington, to say 

74 



Personal Adventures in the Spirit World 

nothing of ten minutes' unexpired time with 
Great-grandfather. 

All of these opportunities I am willing to 
dispose of at a reduced rate to any one still 
sceptical of the reality of the spirit world. 



75' 




V, — The Sorrows of a Summer 
Guest 

ET me admit, as I start to write, that 
the whole thing is my own fault. I 
should never have come. I knew bet- 
ter. I have known better for years. 
I have known that It is sheer madness to go and 
pay visits In other people's houses. 

Yet in a moment of insanity I have let myself 
in for it and here I am. There is no hope, no 
outlet now till the first of September when my 
visit is to terminate. Either that or death. I 
do not greatly care which. 

I write this, where no human eye can see me, 
down by the pond — they call it the lake — at the 
foot of Beverly- Jones's estate. It Is six o'clock 
in the morning. No one is up. For a brief 
hour or so there Is peace. But presently Miss 
Larkspur — the jolly English girl who arrived 
last week — will throw open her casement win- 

76 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

dow and call across the lawn, "Hullo every- 
body ! What a ripping morning I" — and young 
Poppleton will call back in a Swiss yodel from 
somewhere in the shrubbery, and Beverly-Jones 
will appear on the piazza with big towels round 
his neck and shout, "Who's coming for an early 
dip?" And so the day's fun and jollity — 
heaven help me — will begin again. 

Presently they will all come trooping In to 
breakfast, in coloured blazers and fancy blouses, 
laughing and grabbing at the food with mimic 
rudeness and bursts of hilarity. And to think 
that I might have been breakfasting at my club 
with the morning paper propped against the 
coffee-pot, In a silent room In the quiet of the 
city. 

I repeat that It Is my own fault that I am here. 

For many years It had been a principle of my 
life to visit nobody. I had long since learned 
that visiting only brings misery. If I got a card 
or telegram that said, "Won't you run up to the 
Adirondacks and spend the week-end with us ?" 
I sent back word : "No, not unless the Adiron- 
dacks can run faster than I can," or words to 

77 



Frenzied Fiction 



that effect. If the owner of a country house 
wrote to me: "Our man will meet you with a 
trap any afternoon that you care to name/' I 
answered, in spirit at least: "No, he won't, not 
unless he has a bear-trap or one of those traps 
in which they catch wild antelope." If any 
fashionable lady friend wrote to me in the pe- 
culiar jargon that they use: "Can you give us 
from July the twelfth at half-after-three till the 
fourteenth at four?" I replied: "Madam, take 
the whole month, take a year, but leave me in 
peace." 

Such at least was the spirit of my answers to 
invitations. In practice I used to find it suffi- 
cient to send a telegram that read: "Crushed 
with work impossible to get away," and then 
stroll back Into the reading-room of the club 
and fall asleep again. 

But my coming here was my own fault. It 
resulted from one of those unhappy moments 
of expansiveness such as occur, I imagine, to 
everybody — moments when one appears to be 
something quite different from what one really 
is, when one feels oneself a thorough good fel 
78 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

low, sociable, merry, appreciative, and finds the 
people around one the same. Such moods are 
known to all of us. Some people say that It Is 
the super-self asserting Itself. Others say It 
Is from drinking. But let It pass. That at 
any rate was the kind of mood that I was In 
when I met Beverly- Jones and when he asked 
me here. 

It was In the afternoon, at the club. As I 
recall It, we were drinking cocktails and I was 
thinking what a bright, genial fellow Beverly- 
Jones was, and how completely I had mistaken 
him. For myself — I admit It — I am a 
brighter, better man after drinking two cock- 
tails than at any other time — quicker, kindlier, 
more genial. And higher, morally. I had 
been telling stories in that inimitable way that 
one has after two cocktails. In reality, I only 
know four stories, and a fifth that I don't quite 
remember, but in moments of expansiveness 
they feel like a fund or flow. 

It was under such circumstances that I sat 
with Beverly- Jones. And it was in shaking 
hands at leaving that he said: "I do wish, old 
79 



Frenzied Fiction 



chap, that you could run up to our summer place 
and give us the whole of August!" and I an- 
swered, as I shook him warmly by the hand: 
"My dear fellow, I'd simply love to !" "By gad, 
then, it's a go I" he said. "You must come up 
for August, and wake us all up !" 

Wake them up ! Ye gods ! Me, wake them 
upl 

One hour later I was repenting of my folly, 
and wishing, when I thought of the two cock- 
tails, that the prohibition wave could be hurried 
up so as to leave us all high and dry — ^bone- 
dry, silent and unsociable. 

Then I clung to the hope that Beverly-Jones 
would forget. But no. In due time his wife 
wrote to me. They were looking forward so 
much, she said, to my visit; they felt — she re- 
peated her husband's ominous phrase — that I 
should wake them all up I 

What sort of alarm-clock did they take me 
for, anyway! >, 

Ah, well ! They know better now. It was 
only yesterday afternon that Beverly-Jones 
found me standing here in the gloom of some 
80 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 



cedar-trees beside the edge of the pond and 
took me back so quietly to the house that I 
realised he thought I meant to drown myself. 
So I did. 

I could have stood it better — ^my coming here, 
I mean — if they hadn't come down to the sta- 
tion In a body to meet me In one of those long 
vehicles with seats down the sides — silly-looking 
men In coloured blazers and girls with no hats, 
all making a hullabaloo of welcome. "We are 
quite a small party," Mrs. Beverly-Jones had 
written. Small! Great heavens, what would 
they call a large one ? And even those at the 
station turned out to be only half of them. 
There were just as many more all lined up on 
the piazza of the house as we drove up, all 
waving a fool welcome with tennis rackets and 
g^;lf clubs. 

Small party, Indeed! Why, after six days 
there are still some of the idiots whose names 
I haven't got straight! That fool with the 
fluffy mustache, which Is he ? And that jackass 
that made the salad at the picnic yesterday, is 



Frenzied Fiction 



he the brother of the woman with the guitar, 
or who? 

But what I mean is, there is something in that 
sort of noisy welcome that puts me to the bad 
at the start. It always does. A group of 
strangers all laughing together and with a set 
of catchwords and jokes all their own, always 
throws me into a fit of sadness, deeper than 
words. I had thought when Mrs. Beverly- 
Jones said a small party, she really meant small. 
I had had a mental picture of a few sad people, 
greeting me very quietly and gently, and of my- 
self, quiet, too, but cheerful — somehow lifting 
them up, with no great effort, by my mere pres- 
ence. 

Somehow from the very first I could feel that 
Beverly-Jones was disappointed in me. He 
said nothing. But I knew it. On that first aft- 
ernoon, between my arrival and evening din- 
ner, he took me about his place, to show it to 
me. I wish that at some proper time I had 
learned just what it is that you say when a man 
shows you about his place. I never knew be- 
fore how deficient I am in it. I am all right to 
82 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

be shown an iron-and-steel plant, or a soda- 
water factory, or anything really wonderful, but 
being shown a house and grounds and trees, 
things that I have seen all my life, leaves me 
absolutely silent. 

"These big gates," said Beverly-Jones, "we 
only put up this year." I said, "Oh." That 
was all. Why shouldn't they put them up this 
year? I didn't care if they'd put them up this 
year or a thousand years ago. "We had quite 
a struggle," he continued, "before we finally 
decided on sandstone." I said : "You did, eh?" 
There seemed nothing more to say; I didn't 
know what sort of struggle he meant, or who 
fought who ; and personally sandstone or soap- 
stone or any other stone is all the same to me. 

"This lawn," said Beverly-Jones, "we laid 
down the first year we were here." I answered 
nothing. He looked me right in the face as he 
said it and I looked straight back at him, but 
I saw no reason to challenge his statement. 

"The geraniums along the border," he went 
on, "are rather an experiment. They're 
Dutch." I looked fixedly at the geraniums but 
83 



Frenzied Fiction 



never said a word. They were Dutch; all 
right, why not? They were an experiment. 
Very good ; let them be so. I know nothing in 
particular to say about a Dutch experiment. 

I could feel that Beverly-Jones grew de- 
pressed as he showed me round. I was sorry 
for him, but unable to help. I realised that 
there were certain sections of my education that 
had been neglected. How to be shown things 
and make appropriate comments seems to be an 
art in itself. I don't possess it. It is not likely 
now, as I look at this pond, that I ever shall. 

Yet how simple a thing it seems when done 
by others. I saw the difference at once the very 
nt-xt day, the second day of my visit, when Bev- 
erly-Jones took round young Poppleton, the 
man that I mentioned above who will presently 
give a Swiss yodel from a clump of laurel bushes 
to indicate that the day's fun has begun. 

Poppleton I had known before, slightly. I 
used to see him at the club. In club surround- 
ings he always struck me as an ineffable young 
ass, loud and talkative and perpetually break- 
ing the silence rules. Yet I have to admit that 
84 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

in his summer flannels and with a straw hat on 
he can do things that I can't. 

"These big gates," began Beverly- Jones as he 
showed Poppleton round the place with me 
trailing beside them, "we only put up this year." 

Poppleton, who has a summer place of his 
own, looked at the gates very critically. "Now, 
do you know what I'd have done with those 
gates, If they were mine?" he said. 

"No," said Beverly-Jones. 

"I'd have set them two feet wider apart; 
they're too narrow, old chap, too narrow." 

Poppleton shook his head sadly at the gates. 
"We had quite a struggle," said Beverly-Jones, 
"before we finally decided on sandstone." 

I realised that he had one and the same line 
of talk that he always used. I resented it. No 
wonder it was easy for him. 

"Great mistake," said Poppleton. "Too 
soft. Look at this," — here he picked up a big 
stone and began pounding at the gate-post 
"See how easily it chips! Smashes right off. 
Look at that — the whole corner knocks right 
off, see!" 

85 



Frenzied Fiction 



Beverly-Jones entered no protest. I began 
to see that there is a sort of understanding, a 
kind of freemasonry, among men who have 
summer places. One shows his things; the 
other runs them down, and smashes them. This 
makes the whole thing easy at once. 

Beverly-Jones showed his lawn. "Your turf 
Is all wrong, old boy," said Poppleton. "Look! 
It has no body to it. See, I can kick holes in it 
with my heel. Look at that, and that! If I 
had on stronger boots I could kick this lawn 
all to pieces." 

"These geraniums along the border," said 
Beverly-Jones, "are rather an experiment. 
They're Dutch." 

"But my dear fellow," said Poppleton, 
"youVe got them set in wrongly. They ought 
to slope from the sun you know, never to it. 
Wait a bit," — here he picked up a spade that 
was lying where a gardener had been working. 
"I'll throw a few out — notice how easily they 
come up — ah ! — that fellow broke ; they're apt 
to — there, I won't bother to reset them, but tell 
86 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

your man to slope them over from the sun. 
That's the idea." 

Beverly-Jones showed his new boathouse 
next and Poppleton knocked a hole in the side 
with a hammer to show that the lumber was too 
thin. "If that were my boathouse," he said, 
"I'd rip the outside clean off it and use shingle 
and stucco." 

It was, I noticed, Poppleton's plan first to 
Imagine Beverly-Jones's things his own, and 
then to smash them, and then give them back 
smashed to Beverly-Jones. This seemed to 
please them both. Apparently it is a well- 
understood method of entertaining a guest and 
being entertained. Beverly-Jones and Popple- 
ton, after an hour or so of it, were delighted 
with one another. 

Yet somehow, when I tried it myself, it failed 
to work. 

"Do you know what I would do with that 
cedar summer-house if it was mine?" I asked 
my host the next day. 

"No," he said. 

"I'd knock the thing down and burn it," I 
87 



Frenzied Fiction 



answered. But I think I must have said it too 
fiercely. Beverly-Jones looked hurt and said 
nothing. 

Not that these people are not doing all theyj 
can for me. I know that. I admit it. If I 
should meet my end here and if — ^to put the 
thing straight out — my lifeless body is found 
floating on the surface of this pond, I should 
like there to be documentary evidence of that 
much. They are trying their best. "This is 
Liberty Hall," Mrs. Beverly-Jones said to me 
on the first day of my visit. "We want you to 
feel that you are to do absolutely as you like !" 

Absolutely as I like ! How little they know 
me. I should like to have answered : "Madam, 
I have now reached a time of life when human 
society at breakfast is impossible to me; when 
any conversation prior to eleven A.M. must be 
considered out of the question; when I prefer 
to eat my meals in quiet, or with only such mild 
hilarity as can be got from a comic paper; when 
I can no longer wear nankeen pants and a col- 
oured blazer without a sense of personal indig- 
nity ; when I can no longer leap and play in the 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

water like a young fish; when I do not yodel, 
cannot sing and, to my regret, dance even worse 
than I did when young; and when the mood of 
mirth and hilarity comes to me only as a rare 
visitant — shall we say at a burlesque perform- 
ance — and never as a daily part of my existence. 
Madam, I am unfit to be a summer guest. If 
this is Liberty Hall indeed, let me, oh, let me 
go!" 

Such is the speech that I would make If it 
were possible. As it is I can only rehearse It 
to myself. 

Indeed, the more I analyse It the more im- 
possible it seems, for a man of my temperament 
at any rate, to be a summer guest. These peo- 
ple, and I imagine, all other summer people, 
seem to be trying to live In a perpetual joke. 
Everything, all day, has to be taken in a mood 
of uproarious fun. 

However, I can speak of it all now In quiet 
retrospect and without bitterness. It will soon 
be over now. Indeed, the reason why I have 
come down at this early hour to this quiet water 
is that things have reached a crisis. The sit- 

89 



Frenzied Fiction 



nation has become extreme and I must end it. 

It happened last night. Beverly-Jones took 
me aside while the others were dancing the fox- 
trot to the victrola on the piazza. 

"We're planning to have some rather good 
fun to-morrow nighty" he said, "something that 
will be a good deal more in your line than a lot 
of it, I'm afraid, has been up here. In fact, 
my wife says that this will be the very thing 
for you." 

"Oh," I said. 

"We're going to get all the people from the 
other houses over and the girls" — ^this term 
Beverly-Jones uses to mean his wife and her 
friends — "are going to get up a sort of enter- 
tainment with charades and things, all im- 
promptu, more or less, of course " 

"Oh," I said. I saw already what was com- 
ing. 

"And they want you to act as a sort of mas- 
ter-of-ceremonies, to make up the gags and 
introduce the different stunts and all that. I 
was telling the girls about that afternoon at 
the club, when you were simply killing us all 
90 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

with those funny stories of yours, and they're 
all wild over It." 

"Wild?" I repeated. 

"Yes, quite wild over it. They say It will be 
the hit of the summer." 

Beverly-Jones shook hands with great 
warmth as we parted for the night, I knew 
that he was thinking that my character was 
about to be triumphantly vindicated, and that 
he was glad for my sake. 

Last night I did not sleep. I remained awake 
all night thinking of the "entertainment." In 
my whole life I have done nothing In public ex- 
cept once when I presented a walking-stick to 
the vice-president of our club on the occasion 
of his taking a trip to Europe. Even for that 
I used to rehearse to 'myself far into the night 
sentences that began: "This walking-stick, 
gentlemen, means far more than a mere walk- 
ing-stick." 

And now they expect me to come out as a 
merry master-of-ceremonies before an assem- 
bled crowd of summer guests. 

But never mind. It is nearly over now. I 
91 



Frenzied Fiction 



have come down to this quiet water in the early 
morning to throw myself in. They will find 
me floating here among the lilies. Some few 
will understand. I can see It written, as it will 
be, in the newspapers. 

"What makes the sad fatality doubly poig- 
nant is that the unhappy victim had just entered 
upon a holiday visit that was to have been pro- 
longed throughout the whole month. Needless 
to say he was regarded as the life and soul of 
the pleasant party of holiday makers that had 
gathered at the delightful country home of Mr. 
and Mrs. Beverly-Jones. Indeed, on the very 
day of the tragedy, he was to have taken a lead- 
ing part in staging a merry performance of 
charades and parlour entertainments — a thing 
for which his genial talents and overflowing 
high spirits rendered him especially fit." 

When they read that, those who know me 
best will understand how and why I died. "He 
had still over three weeks to stay there," they 
will say: "He was to act as the stage manager 

92 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

of charades." They will shake their heads. 
They will understand. 

But what is this? I raise my eyes from the 
paper and I see Beverly-Jones hurriedly ap- 
proaching from the house. He is hastily 
dressed, with flannel trousers and a dressing- 
gown. His face looks grave. Something has 
happened. Thank God, something has hap- 
pened. Some accident! Some tragedy! 
Something to prevent the charades ! 

I write these last few lines on a fast train that 
is carrying me back to New York, a cool, com- 
fortable train, with a deserted club-car where 
I can sit in a leather armchair, with my feet up 
on another, smoking, silent, and at peace. 

Villages, farms and summer places are fly- 
ing by. Let them fly. I, too, am flying — > 
back to the rest and quiet of the city. 

"Old man," Beverly-Jones said, as he laid 
his hand on mine very kindly (he is a decent 
fellow, after all, is Jones), "they're calling you 
by long-distance from New York." 

93 



Frenzied Fiction 



"What is it?" I asked, or tried to gasp. 

"It's bad news, old chap — fire in your office 
last evening — I'm afraid a lot of your private 
papers were burned. Robinson — that's your 
senior clerk, isn't it? — seems to have been on 
the spot trying to save things. He's badly 
singed about the face and hands. I'm afraid 
you must go at once." 

"Yes, yes," I said, "at once." 

"I know. I've told the man to get the trap 
ready right away. You've just time to catch 
the seven-ten. Come along." 

"Right," I said. I kept my face as well as 
I could, trying to hide my exultation. The of- 
fice burnt ! Fine ! Robinson singed ! Glori- 
ous ! I hurriedly packed my things and whis- 
pered to Beverly-Jones farewell messages for 
the sleeping household. I never felt so jolly 
and facetious in my life. I could feel that 
Beverly-Jones was admiring the spirit and 
pluck with which I took my misfortune. Later 
on he would tell them all about ii:. 

The trap ready! Hoorah! Good-by, old 
man! Hoorah! All right I'll telegraph 
94 



The Sorrows of a Summer Guest 

. . . right you are, good-by . . . hip, hip, 
hoorahl . . . Here we are! Train right on 
time. . . . Just these two bags, porter, and 
there's a dollar for you. What merry, merry 
fellows these darky porters are, anyway! 

And so here I am in the train, safe bound 
for home and the summer quiet of my club. 

Well done for Robinson ! I was afraid that 
It had missed fire, or that my message to him 
had gone wrong. It was on the second day of 
my visit that I sent word to him to invent an 
accident — something, anything — ^to call me 
back. I thought the message had failed. I 
had lost hope. But it is all right now, though 
he certainly pitched the note pretty high. 

Of course I can't let the Beverly- Joneses 
know that it was a put-up job. I must set fire 
to the office as soon as I get back. But it's 
worth it. And I'll have to singe Robinson 
about the face and hands. But it's worth that, 
too! 



95 



VI. — To Nature and Back A^ain 

T was probably owing to the fact that my 
place of lodgment in New York over- 
looked the waving trees of Central Park 
that I was consumed, all summer through, 
with a great longing for the woods. To 
me, as a lover of Nature, the waving of a tree 
conveys thoughts which are never conveyed to 
me except by seeing a tree wave. 

This longing grew upon me. I became rest- 
less with it. In the daytime I dreamed over 
my work. At night my sleep was broken and 
restless. At times I would even wander forth 
at night into the park, and there, deep in the 
night shadow of the trees, imagine myself alone 
In the recesses of the dark woods remote from 
the toil and fret of our distracted civilisation. 
This increasing feeling culminated in the re- 
solve which becomes the subject of this narra- 
tive. The thought came to me suddenly one 

96 



To Nature and Bach Again 

night. I woke from my sleep with a plan fully 
matured in my mind. It was this: I would, 
for one month, cast off all the travail and cares 
of civilised life and become again the wild man 
of the woods that Nature made me. My plan 
was to go to the edge of the great woods, some- 
where in New England, divest myself of my 
clothes — except only my union suit — crawl into 
the woods, stay there a month and then crawl 
out again. To a trained woodsman and crawler 
like myself the thing was simplicity itself. For 
food I knew that I could rely on berries, roots, 
shoots, mosses, mushrooms, fungi, bungi — in 
fact the whole of Nature's ample storehouse; 
for my drink, the running brook and the quiet 
pool; and for my companions the twittering 
chipmunk, the chickadee, the chocktaw, the 
choo-choo, the chow-chow, and the hundred and 
one inhabitants of the forgotten glade and the 
tangled thicket. 

Fortunately for me my resolve came to me 
upon the last day in August. The month of 
September was my vacation. My time was my 
own. I was free to go. 

97 



Frenzied Fiction 



On my rising in the morning my preparations 
were soon made; or rather, there were practi- 
cally no preparations to make. I had but to 
supply myself with a camera, my one necessity 
in the woods, and to say good-bye to my friends. 
Even this last ordeal I wished to make as brief 
as possible. I had no wish to arouse their anxi- 
ety over the dangerous, perhaps foolhardy, 
project that I had in mind. I wished, as far 
as possible, to say good-bye in such a way as to 
allay the very natural fears which my undertak- 
ing would excite in the minds of my friends. 

From myself, although trained in the craft 
of the woods, I could not conceal the danger 
that I incurred. Yet the danger was almost 
forgotten in the extraordinary and novel in- 
terest that attached to the experiment. Would 
it prove possible for a man, unaided by our civ- 
ihsed arts and industries, to maintain himself 
naked (except for his union suit) in the heart 
of the woods? Could he do it, or could he 
not? And if he couldn't, what then? 

But this last thought I put from me. Time 
alone could answer the question. 
98 



To Nature and Bach Again 

As in duty bound, I went first to the place o£ 
business where I am employed, to shake hands 
and say good-bye to my employer. 

"I am going," I said, "to spend a month 
naked alone in the woods." 

He looked up from his desk with genial kind- 
liness. 

"That's right," he said, "get a good rest." 

"My plan is," I added, "to live on berries 
and funguses." 

"Fine," he answered. "Well, have a good 
time, old man — good-bye." 

Then I dropped in casually upon one of my 
friends. "Well," I said, "I'm off to New Eng- 
land to spend a month naked." 

"Nantucket," he said, "or Newport?" 
"No," I answered, speaking as lightly as I 
could. "I'm going into the woods and stay 
there naked for a month." 

"Oh, yes," he said. "I see. Well, good- 
bye, old chap — see you when you get back." 

After that I called upon two or three other 
men to say a brief word of farewell. I could 
not help feeling slightly nettled, I must con- 

99 



Frenzied Fiction 



fess, at the very casual way in which they 
seemed to take my announcement. "Oh, yes," 
they said, "naked in the woods, eh? Well, ta- 
ta till you get back." 

Here was a man about to risk his life — for 
there was no denying the fact — in a great so- 
ciological experiment, yet they received the an- 
nouncement with absolute unconcern. It of- 
fered one more assurance, had I needed it, of 
the degenerate state of the civilisation upon 
which I was turning my back. 

On my way to the train I happened to run 
into a newspaper reporter with whom I have 
some acquaintance. 

"I'm just off," I said, "to New England to 
spend a month naked (at least naked all but my 
union suit) in the woods; no doubt you'll like 
a few details about it for your paper." 

"Thanks, old man," he said, "we've pretty 
well given up running that nature stuff. We 
couldn't do anything with it — unless, of course, 
anything happens to you. Then we'd be glad 
to give you some space." 

Several of my friends had at least the decency 

100 



To Nature and Bach Again 

to see me off on the train. One, and one alone 
accompanied me on the long night-ride to New 
England in order that he might bring back 
my clothes, my watch, and other possessions 
from the point where I should enter the woods, 
together with such few messages of farewell as 
I might scribble at the last moment. 

It was early morning when we arrived at the 
wayside station where we were to alight. 
From here we walked to the edge of the woods. 
Arrived at this point we halted. I took off my 
clothes, with the exception of my union suit. 
Then, taking a pot of brown stain from my 
valise, I proceeded to dye my face and hands 
and my union suit itself a deep butternut brown. 

"What's that for?" asked my friend. 

"For protection," I answered. "Don't you 
know that all animals are protected by their 
peculiar markings that render them invisible? 
The caterpillar looks like the leaf it eats from; 
the scales of the fish counterfeit the glistening 
water of the brook; the bear and the 'possum 
are colored like the tree-trunks on which they 

lOI 



Frenzied Fiction 



climb. There!" I added, as I concluded my 
task, "I am now Invisible." 

"Gee!" said my friend. I handed him back 
the valise and the empty paintpot, dropped to 
my hands and knees (my camera slimg about 
my neck) and proceeded to crawl into the bush. 
My friend stood watching me. 

"Why don't you stand up and walk?" I heard 
him call. 

I turned half round and growled at him. 
Then I plunged deeper into the brush, growling 
as I went. 

After ten minutes' active crawling I found 
myself In the heart of the forest. It reached 
all about me on every side for hundreds of 
miles. All around me was the unbroken still- 
ness of the woods. Not a sound reached my 
ear save the twittering of a squirrel, or squirl, 
in the branches high above my head, or the 
far-distant call of a loon hovering over some 
woodland lake. 

I judged that I had reached a spot suitable 
for my habitation. 

My first care was to make a fire. Difficult 

102 



To Nature and Bach Again 

though it might appear to the degenerate dwell- 
er of the city to do this, to the trained woods- 
man, such as I had now become, it is noth- 
ing. I selected a dry stick, rubbed it vigor- 
ously against my hind leg, and in a few mo- 
ments it broke into a generous blaze. Half an 
hour later I was sitting beside a glowing fire 
of twigs discussing with great gusto an appe- 
tising mess of boiled grass and fungi cooked 
in a hollow stone. 

I ate my fill, not pausing till I was full, care- 
less, as the natural man ever is, of the morrow. 
Then, stretched out upon the pine-needles at 
the foot of a great tree, I lay in drowsy con- 
tentment listening to the song of the birds, the 
hum of the myriad insects and the strident note 
of the squirrel high above me. At times I 
would give utterance to the soft answering call, 
known to every woodsman, that is part of the 
freemasonry of animal speech. As I lay thus 
I would not have exchanged places with the 
pale dweller in the city for all the wealth in 
the world. Here I lay remote from the world, 
103 



Frenzied Fiction 



happy, full of grass, listening to the crooning 
of the birds. 

But the mood of inaction and reflection can- 
not last, even with the lover of Nature. It 
was time to be up and doing. Much lay before 
me to be done before the setting of the sun 
should bring with it, as I fully expected it 
would, darkness. Before night fell I must build 
a house, make myself a suit of clothes, lay in 
a store of nuts, and in short prepare myself 
for the oncoming of winter, which, in the bush, 
may come on at any time in the -summer. 

I rose briskly from the ground to my hands 
and knees and set myself to the building of my 
house. The method that I intended to follow 
here was merely that which Nature has long 
since taught to the beaver and which, moreover, 
is known and practised by the gauchos of the 
pampas, by the googoos of Rhodesia and by 
many other tribes. I had but to select a suit- 
able growth of trees and gnaw them down with 
my teeth, taking care so to gnaw them that each 
should fall into the place appointed for it in 
the building. The sides, once erected in this 
104 



To Nature and Back Again 

fashion, another row of trees, properly situated, 
is gnawed down to fall crosswise as the roof. 

I set myself briskly to work and in half an 
hour had already the satisfaction of seeing my 
habitation rising into shape. I was still gnaw- 
ing with unabated energy when I was interrupt- 
ed by a low growling in the underbrush. With 
animal caution I shrank behind a tree, growling 
in return. I could see something moving in the 
bushes, evidently an animal of large size. From 
its snarl I judged it to be a bear. I could hear 
it moving nearer to me. It was about to attack 
me. A savage joy thrilled through me at the 
thought, while my union suit bristled with rage 
from head to foot as I emitted growl after 
growl of defiance. I bared my teeth to the 
gums, snarling, and lashed my flank with my 
hind foot. Eagerly I watched for the onrush 
of the bear. In savage combat who strikes 
first wins. It was my idea, as soon as the bear 
should appear, to bite off its front legs one 
after the other. This initial advantage once 
gained I had no doubt of ultimate victory. 

The bushes parted. I caught a glimpse of a 
105 



Frenzied Fiction 



long brown body and a hairy head. Then the 
creature reared up, breasting itself against a 
log, full in front of me. Great heavens! It 
was not a bear at all. It was a man. 

He was dressed, as I was, in a union suit, and 
his face and hands, like mine, were stained a 
butternut brown. His hair was long and 
matted and two weeks' stubble of beard was 
on his face. 

For a minute we both glared at one another, 
still grovding. Then the man rose up to a 
standing position with a muttered exclamation 
of disgust. 

"Ah, cut it out," he said. "Let's talk Eng- 
lish." 

He walked over toward me and sat down up- 
on a log in an attitude that seemed to convey 
the same disgust as the expression of his fea- 
tures. Then he looked round about him. 

"What are you doing?" he said. 

"Building a house," I answered. 

"I know," he said with a nod. "What are 
you here for?" 

"Why," I explained, "my plan is this: I want 
io6 



To Nature and Back Again 

to see whether a man can come out here in the 
woods, naked, with no aid but that of his own 
hands and his own ingenuity and " 

"Yes, yes, I know," interrupted the discon- 
solate man — "earn himself a livelihood in the 
wilderness, live as the cave-man lived, care-free 
and far from the curse of civilisation!" 

"That's It. That was my idea," I said, my 
enthusiasm rekindling as I spoke. "That's 
what I'm doing; my food is to be the rude 
grass and the roots that Nature furnishes for 
her children, and for my drink " 

"Yes, yes," he Interrupted again with impa- 
tience, "for your drink the running rill, for 
your bed the sweet couch of hemlock, and for 
your canopy the open sky lit with the soft stars 
in the deep-purple vault of the dewy night. I 
know." 

"Great heavens, man!" I exclaimed. 
"That's my idea exactly. In fact, those are 
my very phrases. How could you have guessed 
it?" 

He made a gesture with his hand to indicate 
weariness and disillusionment. 
107 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Pshaw!" he said, "I know it because I've 
been doing it. I've been here a fortnight now 
on this open-air, life-in-the-woods game. Well, 
I'm sick of it ! This last lets me out." 

"What last?" I asked. 

"Why, meeting you. Do you realise that 
you are the nineteenth man that I've met in the 
last three days running about naked in the 
woods? They're all doing it. The woods are 
full of them." 

"You don't say so !" I gasped. 

"Fact. Wherever you go in the bush you 
find naked men all working out this same blast- 
ed old experiment. Why, when you get a little 
further In you'll see signs up, NAKED MEN 
NOT ALLOWED IN THIS BUSH, and 
NAKED MEN KEEP OFF, and GENTLE- 
MEN WHO ARE NAKED WILL KINDLY 
KEEP TO THE HIGH ROAD, and a lot of 
things like that. You must have come in at a 
wrong place or you'd have noticed the little 
shanties that they have now at the edge of the 
New England bush with signs up: UNION 
SUITS BOUGHT AND SOLD, CAMERAS 
io8 



To Nature and Bach Again 

FOR SALE OR TO RENT, HIGHEST 
PRICE FOR CAST-OFF CLOTHING, and 

all that sort of thing." 

"No," I said. "I saw nothing." 

"Well, you look when you go back. As for 
me, I'm done with it. The thing's worked out. 
I'm going back to the city to see whether I 
can't, right there in the heart of the city, earn 
myself a livelihood with my unaided hands and 
brains. That's the real problem; no more bum- 
ming on the animals for me. This bush busi- 
ness is too easy. Well, good-bye; I'm off." 

"But stop a minute," I said. "How is it that 
if what you say is true, I haven't seen or heard 
anybody in the bush, and I've been here since 
the middle of the morning?" 

"Nonsense," the man answered. "They were 
probably all round you but you didn't recognise 
them." 

"No, no, it's not possible. I lay here dream- 
ing beneath a tree and there wasn't a sound, 
except the twittering of a squirrel and, far 
away, the cry of a lake-loon, nothing else." 

"Exactly, the twittering of a squirrel! That 
109 



Frenzied Fiction 



was some feller up the tree twittering to beat 
the band to let on that he was a squirrel, and 
no doubt some other feller calling out like a 
loon over near the lake. I suppose you gave 
them the answering cry?" 

"I did," I said. "I gave that low guttural 
note which " 

"Precisely — which Is the universal greeting 
in the freemasonry of animal speech. I see 
you've got it all down pat. Well, good-bye 
again. I'm off. Oh, don't bother to growl, 
please. I'm sick of that line of stuff." 

"Good-bye," I said. He slid through the 
bushes and disappeared. I sat where I was, 
musing, my work interrupted, a mood of bit- 
ter disillusionment heavy upon me. So I sat, 
it may have been for hours. 

In the far distance I could hear the faint cry 
of a bittern in some lonely marsh. 

"Now, who the deuce is making that noise," 
I muttered; "some silly fool, I suppose, trying 
to think he's a waterfowl. Cut it out !" 

Long I lay, my dream of the woods shat- 
tered, wondering what to do. 
no 



To Nature and Bach Again 

Then suddenly there came to my ear the loud 
sound of voices, human voices, strident and 
eager, with nothing of the animal growl in 
them. 

"He's In there. I seen him !" I heard some 
one call. 

Rapidly I dived sideways into the under- 
brush, my animal Instinct strong upon me again, 
growling as I went. Instinctively I knew that 
it was I that they were after. All the animal 
joy of being hunted came over me. My union 
suit stood up on end with mingled fear and 
rage. 

As fast as I could I retreated into the wood. 
Yet somehow, as I moved, the wood, instead 
of growing denser seemed to thin out. I 
crouched low, still growling and endeavouring 
to bury myself in the thicket. I was filled with 
a wild sense of exhilaration such as any lover 
of the wild life would feel at the knowledge 
that he is being chased, that some one is after 
him, that some one is perhaps just a few feet 
behind him, waiting to stick a pitchfork into 
him as he runs. There is no ecstasy like this. 
Ill 



Frenzied Fiction 



Then I realised that my pursuers had closed 
in on me. I was surrounded on all sides. 

The woods had somehow grown thin. 
They were like the mere shrubbery of a park 
— it might be of Central Park itself. I could 
hear among the deeper tones of men the shrill 
voices of boys. "There he is," one cried, "go- 
ing through them bushes I Look at him hump- 
ing himself I" "What is It, what's the sport?" 
another called. "Some crazy guy loose in the 
park in his underclothes and the cops after him." 

Then they closed in on me. I recognised 
the blue suits of the police force and their short 
clubs. In a few minutes I was dragged out of 
the shrubbery and stood in the open park in 
my pajamas, wide awake, shivering in the chilly 
air of early morning. 

Fortunately for me, it was decided at the po- 
lice-court that sleepwalking is not an offense 
against the law. I was dismissed with a caution. 

My vacation is still before me, and I still 
propose to spend it naked. But I shall do so 
at Atlantic City. 

112 



VII— The Cave Man as He Is 

I THINK it likely that few people besides 
myself have ever actually seen and spoken 
with a "cave-man." 

Yet everybody nowadays knows all 
about the cave-man. The fifteen-cent maga- 
zines and the new fiction have made him a fa- 
miliar figure. A few years ago, it is true, no- 
body had ever heard of him. But lately, for 
some reason or other, there has been a run on 
the cave-man. No up-to-date story is complete 
without one or two references to him. The 
hero, when the heroine slights him, is said to 
"feel for a moment the wild, primordial desire 
of the cave-man, the longing to seize her, to 
drag her with him, to carry her away, to make 
her his." When he takes her in his arms it 
is recorded that "all the elemental passion of 
the cave-man surges through him." When he 
fights, on her behalf, against a dray-man or a 
113 



Frenzied Fiction 



gun-man or an ice-man or any other compound 
that makes up a modern villain, he is said to 
"feel all the fierce fighting joy of the cave- 
man." If they kick him in the ribs, he likes it. 
If they beat him over the head he never feels 
it; because he is, for the moment, a cave-man. 
And the cave-man is, and is known to be, quite 
above sensation. 

The heroine, too, shares the same point of 
view. "Take me," she murmurs as she falls 
into the hero's embrace, "be my cave-man." 
As she says it there is, so the writer assures us, 
something of the fierce light of the cave-woman 
in her eyes, the primordial woman to be wooed 
and won only by force. 

Soj like everybody else, I had, till I saw him, 
a great idea of the cave-man. I had a clear 
mental picture of him — huge, brawny, muscu- 
lar, a wolfskin thrown about him and a great 
war-club in his hand. I knew him as without 
fear, with nerves untouched by our effete civili- 
sation, fighting, as the beasts fight, to the death, 
killing without pity and suffering without a 
moan. 

114 



The Cave 3Ian as He Is 



It was a picture that I could not but admire. 

I liked, too — I am free to confess it — his pe* 
culiar way with women. His system was, as I 
understood it, to take them by the neck and 
bring them along with him. That was his 
fierce, primordial way of "wooing" them. And 
they liked it. So at least we are informed by 
a thousand credible authorities. They liked it. 
And the modern woman, so we are told, would 
still like it if only one dared to try it on. 
There's the trouble; if one only dared! 

I see lots of them — I'll be frank about it — 
that I should like to grab, to sling over my 
shoulder and carry away with me ; or, what is 
the same thing, allowing for modern conditions, 
have an expressman carry them. I notice them 
at Atlantic City, I see them on Fifth Avenue — 
yes, everywhere. 

But would they come ? That's the deuce of 
it. Would they come right along, like the cave- 
woman, merely biting off my ear as they came, 
or are they degenerate enough to bring an ac- 
tion-at-law against me, indicting the express 
company as a party of the second part? 
IIS 



Frenzied Fiction 



Doubts such as these prevent me from taking 
active measures. But they leave me, as they 
leave many another man, preoccupied and fas- 
cinated with the cave-man. 

One may imagine, then, my extraordinary in- 
terest in him when I actually met him in the 
flesh. Yet the thing came about quite simply, 
indeed more by accident than by design, an ad- 
venture open to all. 

It so happened that I spent my vacation in 
Kentucky — the region, as everybody knows, of 
the great caves. They extend, — it is a matter 
of common knowledge, — for hundreds of 
miles ; in some places dark and sunless tunnels, 
the black silence broken only by the dripping of 
the water from the roof; in other places great 
vaults like subterranean temples, with vast stone 
arches sweeping to the dome, and with deep, 
still water of unfathomed depth as the floor; 
and here and there again they are lighted from 
above through rifts in the surface of the earth, 
and are dry and sand strewn — fit for human 
habitation. 

In such caves as these, so has the^ obstinate 
ii6 



The Cave Man as He Is 



legend run for centuries, there still dwell cave- 
men, the dwindling remnant of their race. And 
here It was that I came across him. 

I had penetrated into the caves far beyond 
my guides. I carried a revolver and had with 
me an electric lantern, but the increasing sun- 
light In the cave as I went on had rendered the 
latter needless. 

There he sat, a huge figure, clad In a great 
wolfskin. Beside him lay a great club. Across 
hfs knee was a spear round which he was bind- 
ing sinews that tightened under his muscular 
hand. His head was bent over his task. His 
matted hair had fallen over his eyes. He did 
not see me till I was close beside him on the 
sanded floor of the cave. 

I gave a slight cough. "Excuse me !" I said. 
The Cave-man gave a startled jump. "My 
goodness," he said, "you startled me!" 

I could see that he was quite trembling. 

"You came along so suddenly," he said, "it 
gave me the jumps." Then he muttered, more 
to himself than to me, "too much of this darned 
cave-water I I must quit drinking it." 
117 



Frenzied Fiction 



I sat down near to the Cave-man on a stone, 
taking care to place my revolver carefully be- 
hind it. I don't mind admitting that a loaded 
revolver, especially as I get older, makes me 
nervous. I was afraid that he might start 
fooling with it. One can't be too careful. 

As a way of opening conversation I picked up 
the Cave-man's club. "Say," I said, "that's a 
great club you have, eh? By gee! it's heavy!" 

"Look out!" said the Cave-man with a cer- 
tain agitation in his voice as he reached out and 
took the club from me; "don't fool with that 
club I It's loaded ! You know you could easily 
drop that club on your toes, or on mine. A 
man can't be too careful with a loaded club." 

Ke rose as he said this and carried the club 
to the other side of the cave where he leant It 
against the wall. Now that he stood up and I 
could examine him he no longer looked so big. 
In fact he was not big at all. The effect of size 
must have come, I think, from the great wolf- 
skin that he wore. I have noticed the same 
thing in Grand Opera. I noticed, too, for the 
first time that the cave we were in seemed fitted 
ii8 



The Cave Man as He Is 



up, In a rude sort of way, like a dwelling-room. 

"This Is a nice place you've got," I said. 

"Dandy, Isn't It?" he said, as he cast his eyes 
around. ^^She fixed It up. She's got great taste. 
See that mud sideboard? That's the real thing, 
A-one mud! None of your cheap rock about 
that. We fetched that mud for two miles to 
make that. And look at that wicker bucket. 
Isn't It great? Hardly leaks at all except 
through the sides, and perhaps a little through 
the bottom. She wove that. She's a humdinger 
at weaving." 

He was moving about as he spoke, showing 
me all his little belongings. He reminded me 
for all the world of a man In a Harlem flat, 
showing a visitor how convenient It all Is. Some- 
how, too, the Cave-man had lost all appearance 
of size. He looked, In fact, quite little, and 
when he had pushed his long hair back from 
his forehad he seemed to wear that same, wor- 
ried, apologetic look that we all have. To a 
higher being. If there Is such, our little faces 
one and all appear, no doubt, pathetic. 
119 



Frenzied Fiction 



I knew that he must be speaking about his 
wife. 

"Where is she?" I asked. 

"My wife?" he said. "Oh, she's gone out 
somewhere through the caves with the kid. You 
didn't meet our kid as you came along, did 
you? No? Well, he's the greatest boy you 
ever saw. He was only two this nineteenth of 
August. And you should hear him say 'Pop' 
and 'Mom' just as if he was grown up. He 
is really, I think, about the brightest boy I've 
ever known — I mean quite apart from being his 
father, and speaking of him as if he were any- 
one else's boy. You didn't meet them?" 

"No," I said, "I didn't." 

"Oh, well," the Cave-man went on-, "there 
are lots of ways and passages through. I guess 
they went in another direction. The wife gen- 
erally likes to take a stroll round in the morning 
and see some of the neighbours. But, say," he 
interrupted, "I guess I'm forgetting my man- 
ners. Let me get you a drink of cave-water. 
Here, take it in this stone mug! There you are, 
say when! Where do we get it? Oh, we find 

120 



The Cave Man as He Is 



it in parts of the cave where it filters through 
the soil above. Alcoholic? Oh, yes, about fif- 
teen per cent., I think. Some say it soaks all 
through the soil of this State. Sit down and 
be comfortable, and, say, if you hear the woman 
coming just slip your mug behind that stone 
out of sight. Do you mind? Now, try one of 
these elm-root cigars. Oh, pick a good one — 
there are lots of them!" 

We seated ourselves in some comfort on the 
soft sand, our backs against the boulders, sip- 
ping cave-water and smoking elm-root cigars. 
It seemed altogether as if one were back in 
civilisation, talking to a genial host. 

"Yes," said the Cave-man, and he spoke, as 
it were, in a large and patronising way. "I 
generally let my wife trot about as she likes in 
the daytime. She and the other women now- 
adays are getting up all these different move- 
ments, and the way I look at it is that if it 
amuses her to run around and talk and attend 
meetings, why let her do it. Of course," he 
continued, assuming a look of great firmness, 
"If I liked to put my foot down " 

121 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Exactly, exactly," I said; "it's the same way 
with us!" 

"Is it now?" he questioned with interest. "I 
had imagined that it was all different Outside. 
You're from the Outside, aren't you? I guessed 
you must be from the skins you wear." 

"Have you never been Outside?" I asked. 

"No fear!" said the Cave-man. "Not for 
mine ! Down in here in the caves, clean under- 
ground and mostly in the dark, it's all right. It's 
nice and safe." He gave a sort of shudder. 
"Gee! You fellows out there must have your 
nerve to go walking around like that on the out- 
side rim of everything, where the stars might 
fall on you or a thousand things happen to you. 
But then you Outside Men have got a natural 
elemental fearlessness about you that we Cave- 
men have lost. I tell you, I was pretty scared 
when I looked up and saw you standing there." 

"Had you never seen any Outside Men?" I 
asked. 

"Why, yes," he answered, "but never close. 
The most I've done is to go out to the edges of 
the cave sometimes and look out and see them, 

122 



The Cave Man as He Is 



Outside Men and Women, in the distance. But 
of course, in one way or another, we Cave-men 
know all about them. And the thing we envy 
most in you Outside Men is the way you treat 
your women I By gee ! You take no nonsense 
from them — you fellows are the real primor- 
dial, primitive men. We've lost it somehow." 

"Why, my dear fellow " I began. 

But the Cave-man, who had sat suddenly up- 
right, interrupted. 

"Quick! quick!" he said. "Hide that infer- 
nal mug! She's coming. Don't you hear!" 

As he spoke I caught the sound of a woman's 
voice somewhere in the outer passages of the 
cave. 

"Now, Willie," she was saying, speaking evi- 
dently to the Cave-child, "you come right along 
back with me, and if I ever catch you getting 
in such a mess as that again I'll never take you 
anywhere, so there!" 

Her voice had grown louder. She entered 
the cave as she spoke — a big-boned woman in a 
suit of skins leading by the hand a pathetic Httle 
123 



Frenzied Fiction 



mite in a rabbit-skin, with blue eyes and a slob- 
bered face. 

But as I was sitting the Cave-woman evi- 
dently couldn't see me; for she turned at once 
to speak to her husband, unconscious of my 
presence. 

"Well, of all the idle creatures!" she ex- 
claimed, "loafing here in the sand!" she gave a 
sniff, "and smoking !" 

"My dear," began the Cave-man. 

"Don't you my-dear me!" she answered. 
"Look at this place! Nothing tidied up yet 
and the day half through ! Did you put the alli- 
gator on to boil?" 

"I was just going to say " began the 

Cave-man. 

"Going to say ! Yes, I don't doubt you were 
going to say. You'd go on saying all day if 
I'd let you. What I'm asking you is. Is the alli- 
gator on to boil for dinner or is it not My 

gracious!" She broke off all of a sudden, as 

she caught sight of me. "Why didn't you say 

there was company? Land sakes 1 And you sit 

124 



Th^ Cave Man as He Is 



there and never say there was a gentleman 
here!" 

She had hustled across the cave and was 
busily arranging her hair with a pool of water 
as a mirror. 

"Gracious!" she said, "I'm a perfect fright! 
You must excuse me," she added, looking round 
toward me, "for being in this state. I'd just 
slipped on this old fur blouse and run around to 
a neighbour's and I'd no idea that he was going 
to bring In company. Just like him ! I'm afraid 
we've nothing but a plain alligator stoo to offer 
you, but I'm sure if you'll stay to dinner " 

She was hustling about already, good primi- 
tive housewife that she was, making the stone- 
plates rattle on the mud table. 

"Why, really " I began. But I was in- 
terrupted by a sudden exclamation from both 
the Cave-man and the Cave-woman together, 
"Willie! Where's Willie!" 

"Gracious!" cried the woman. "He's wan- 
dered out alone — oh, hurry, look for him! 
Something might get him ! He may have fallen 
in the water ! Oh, hurry !" 
125 



Frenzied Fiction 



They were off in a moment, shouting into the 
dark passages of the outer cave: "Willie! Wil- 
lie!" There was agonised anxiety in their 
voices. 

And then in a moment as it seemed they were 
back again, with Willie in their arms, blubber- 
ing, his rabbit-skin all wet. 

"Goodness gracious!" said the Cave-woman. 
"He'd fallen right in, the poor little man. 
Hurry, dear, and get something dry to wrap 
him in! Goodness, what a fright! Quick, 
darling, give me something to rub him with." 

Anxiously the Cave-parents moved about be- 
side the child, all quarrel vanished. 

"But surely," I said, as they calmed down a 
little, "just there where Willie fell in, beside the 
passage that I came through, there is only three 
inches of water." 

"So there is," they said, both together, "but 
just suppose it had been three feet !" 

Later on, when Willie was restored, they 
both renewed their invitation to me to stay to 
dinner. 

"Didn't you say," said the Cave-man, "that 
126 



The Cave Man as He Is 



you wanted to make some notes on the differ- 
ence between Cave-people and the people of 
your world of to-day?" 

"I thank you," I answered, "I have already, 
all the notes I wantl" 



127 



VI I I. —Ideal Interviews 




WITH A EUROPEAN PRINCE 

\JVith any European Prince — Travelling in 
America~\ 

N receiving our card the Prince, to our 

great surprise and pleasure, sjnt down 

a most cordial message that he would 

be delighted to see us at once. This 

thrilled us. 

"Take us," we said to the elevator boy, "to 
the apartments of the Prince." We were 
pleased to see him stagger and lean against 
his wheel to get his breath back. 

In a few moments we found ourselves cross- 
ing the threshold of the Prince's apartments. 
The Prince, who is a charming young man of 
128 



Ideal Interviews 



from twenty-six to twenty-seven, came across 
the floor to meet us with an extended hand and 
a simple gesture of welcome. We have seldom 
seen any one come across the floor more simply. 

The Prince, who is travelling incognito as 
the Count of Flim Flam, was wearing, when 
we saw him, the plain morning dress of a gen- 
tleman of leisure. We learned that a little 
earlier he had appeared at breakfast in the cos- 
tume of a Unitarian clergyman, under the In- 
cognito of the Bishop of Bongee: while later 
on he appeared at lunch, as a delicate compli- 
ment to our city, in the costume of a Columbia 
professor of Yiddish. 

The Prince greeted us with the greatest cor- 
diality, seated himself, without the slightest af- 
fectation, and motioned to us, with Indescriba- 
ble bonhomie, his permission to remain stand- 
ing. 

"Well," said the Prince, "what It Is?" 

We need hardly say that the Prince, who Is 
a consummate master of ten languages, speaks 
English quite as fluently as he does Chinese. 
129 



Frenzied Fiction 



Indeed, for a moment, we could scarcely tell 
which he was talking. 

"What are your Impressions of the United 
States?" we asked as we took out our note- 
book. 

"I am afraid," answered the Prince, with the 
delightful smile which is characteristic of him, 
and which we noticed again and again during 
the Interview, "that I must scarcely tell you 
that." 

We realised immediately that we we^e In the 
presence not only of a soldier but of one of the 
most consummate diplomats of the present day. 

"May we ask then," we resumed, correcting 
our obvious blunder, "what are your Impres- 
sions, Prince, of the Atlantic Ocean?" 

"Ah," said the Prince, with that peculiar 
thoughtfulness which Is so noticeable In him 
and which we observed not once but several 
times, "the Atlantic!" 

Volumes could not have expressed his 
thought better. 

130 



Ideal Interviews 



"Did you," we asked, "see any ice during 
your passage across?" 

"Ah !" said the Prince, "ice ! Let me think." 

We did so. 

"Ice," repeated the Prince thoughtfully. 

We realised that we were In th.e presence not 
only of a soldier, a linguist and a diplomat, 
but of a trained scientist accustomed to exact 
research. 

"Ice !" repeated the Prince, "did I see any 
Ice? No." 

Nothing could have been more decisive, more 
final than the clear, simple brevity of the 
Prince's "No." Fle had seen no ice. He knew 
he had seen no Ice. He said he had seen no 
ice. Nothing could have been more straight- 
forward, more direct. We felt assured from 
that moment that the Prince had not seen any 
Ice. 

The exquisite good taste with which the 
Prince had answered our question, served to 
put us entirely at our ease, and we presently 
found ourselves chatting with his Royal Hlgh- 

131 



Frenzied Fiction 



ness with the greatest freedom and without the 
slightest gene or mauvaise honte, or, in fact, 
malvoisie of any kind. 

We realised, indeed, that we were in the 
presence not only of a trained soldier, a lin- 
guist and a diplomat, but also of a conversa- 
tionalist of the highest order. 

His Highness, who has an exquisite sense 
of humour — indeed, it broke out again and 
again during our talk with him — expressed him- 
self as both amused and perplexed over our 
American money. 

"It is very difficult," he said, "with us it is 
so simple ; six and a half groner are equal to one 
and a third gross-groner or the quarter part of 
our Rigsdaler. Here it is so complicated." 

We ventured to show the Prince a fifty-cent 
piece and to explain its value by putting two 
quarters beside it. 

"I see," said the Prince, whose mathematical 
ability is quite exceptional, "two twenty-five- 
cent pieces are equal to one fifty-cent piece. I 
must try to remember that. Meantime," he 
added, with a gesture of royal condescension — 
132 



Ideal Interviews 



putting the money In his pocket — "I shall keep 
your coins as instructors"; — we murmured our 
thanks — "and now explain to me, please, your 
five-dollar gold piece and your ten-dollar 
eagle." 

We felt it proper, however, to shift the sub- 
ject, and asked the Prince a few questions in 
regard to his views on American politics. We 
soon found that his Serene Highness, although 
this is his first visit to this continent, is a keen 
student of our institutions and our political life. 
Indeed, his Altitude showed by his answers to 
our questions that he is as well informed about 
our politics as we are ourselves. On being 
asked what he viewed as the uppermost ten- 
dency in our political life of to-day, the Prince 
replied thoughtfully that he didn't know. To 
our inquiry as to whether in his opinion democ- 
racy was moving forward or backward, the 
Prince, after a moment of reflection, answered 
that he had no idea. On our asking which of 
the generals of our Civil War was regarded in 
Europe as the greatest strategist. His Highness 

133 



Frenzied Fiction 



answered without hesitation — "George Wash-' 
ington." 

Before closing our interview the Prince, who, " 
like his illustrious father, is an enthusiastic 
sportsman, completely turned the tables on us 
by inquiring eagerly about the prospects for 
large game in America. 

We told him something — as much as we 
could recollect — of woodchuck hunting in our 
own section of the country. The Prince was 
interested at once. His eye lighted up, and 
the peculiar air of fatigue, or languor, which 
we had thought to remark on his face during 
our interview, passed entirely off his features. 
He asked us a number of questions, quickly 
and without pausing, with the air, in fact, of 
a man accustomed to command and not to listen. 
How was the woodchuck hunted? From horse- 
back or from an elephant? Or from an ar- 
moured car, or turret? How many beaters did 
one use to beat up the woodchuck? What 
bearers was it necessary to carry with one? 
How great a danger must one face of 'having 
134 



Ideal l7iterviews 



one's beaters killed? What percentage of risk 
must one be prepared to incur of accidentally 
shooting one's own beaters? What did a bearer 
cost? and so on. 

All these questions we answered as best we 
could, the Prince apparently seizing the gist, 
or essential part of our answer, before we had 
said it. 

In concluding the discussion we ventured to 
ask His Highness for his autograph. The 
Prince, who has perhaps a more exquisite sense 
of humour than any other sovereign of Europe, 
declared with a laugh that he had no pen. 
Still roaring over this inimitable drollery, we 
begged the Prince to honor us by using our own 
fountain-pen. 

"Is there any ink in it?" asked the Prince — 
which threw us Into a renewed paroxysm of 
laughter. 

The Prince took the pen and very kindly 
autographed for us seven photographs of him- 
self. He offered us more, but we felt that 
seven was about all we could use. We were 
still suffocated with laughter over the Prince's 

135 



Frenzied Fiction 



wit; His Highness was still signin" photo- 
graphs when an equerry appeared and whis- 
pered in the Prince's ear. His Highness, with 
the consummate tact to be learned only at a 
court, turned quietly without a word and left 
the room. 

We never, in all our experience, remember 
seeing a prince — or a mere man for the matter 
of that — leave a room with greater suavity, dis- 
cretion, or aplomb. It was a revelation of 
breeding, of race, of long slavery to caste. 
And yet, with it all, it seemed to have a touch 
of finality about it — a hint that the entire pro- 
ceeding was deliberate, planned, not to be al- 
tered by circumstance. He did not come back. 

We understand that he appeared later in the 
morning at a civic reception in the costume of an 
Alpine Jaeger, and attended the matinee in the 
dress of a lieutenant of police. 

Meantime he has our pen. If he turns up in 
any costume that we can spot at sight, we shall 
ask him for it. 



136 



Ideal Interviews 



II 

WITH OUR GREATEST ACTOR 

\_That is to say, with Any One of our Sixteen 
Greatest Actors^ 

It was within the privacy of his own library 
that we obtained — need we say with infinite diffi- 
culty — our interview with the Great Actor. He 
was sitting in a deep armchair, so buried In his 
own thoughts that he was oblivious of our ap- 
proach. On his knee before him lay a cabinet 
photograph of himself. His eyes seemed to 
be peering into it, as If seeking to fathom its 
unfathomable mystery. We had time to note 
that a beautiful carbon photogravure of him- 
self stood on a table at his elbow, while a mag- 
nificent half-tone pastel of himself was sus- 
pended on a string from the ceiling. It was 
only when we had seated ourself in a chair and 
taken out our notebook that the Great Actor 
looked up. 

"An interview?" he said, and we noted with 

137 



Frenzied Fiction 



pain the weariness in his tone, "another inter- 
view!" 

We bowed. 

"Publicity!" he murmured rather to himself 
than to us, "publicity! Why must one always 
be forced into publicity?" 

It was not our intention, we explained apolo- 
getically, to publish or to print a single 
word, 

"Eh, what?" exclaimed the Great Actor, "not 
print it ? Not publish it ? Then what in " 

Not, we explained, without his consent. 

"Ah!" he murmured wearily, "my consent. 
Yes, yes, I must give it. The world demands 
it. Print, publish anything you like. I am in- 
different to praise, careless of fame. Posterity 
will judge me. But," he added more briskly, 
"let me see a proof of it in time to make any 
changes I might care to." 

We bowed our assent. "And now," we be- 
gan, "may we be permitted to ask a few ques- 
tions about your art? And first, in which 
branch of the drama do you consider that your 
13B 



Ideal Interviews 



genius chiefly lies, In tragedy or In comedy?" 

"In both," said the Great Actor. 

"You excel then," we continued, "In neither 
the one nor the other?" 

"Not at all," he answered, "I excel in each 
of them." 

"Excuse us," we said, "we haven't made our 
meaning quite clear. What we meant to say is, 
stated very simply, that you do not consider 
yourself better in either of them than in the 
other?" 

"Not at all," said the Great Actor, as he put 
out his arm with that splendid gesture that we 
have known and admired for years, at the same 
time throwing back his leonine head so that his 
leonine hair fell back from his leonine fore- 
head. "Not at all. I do better In both of 
them. My genius demands both tragedy and 
comedy at the same time." 

"Ah," we said, as a light broke in upon us, 
"then that, we presume, is the reason why you 
are about to appear in Shakespeare?" 

The Great Actor frowned. 
139 



Frenzied Fiction 



"I would rather put it," he said, "that Shake- 
speare is about to appear in me." 

"Of course, of course," we murmured, 
ashamed of our own stupidity. 

"I appear," went on the Great Actor, "in 
Hamlet. I expect to present, I may say, an 
entirely new Hamlet." 

"A new Hamlet!" we exclaimed, fascinated; 
"a new Hamlet! Is such a thing possible?" 

"Entirely," said the Great Actor, throwing 
his leonine head forward again. "I have de- 
voted years of study to the part. The whole 
conception of the part of Hamlet has been 
wrong." 

We sat stunned. 

"All actors hitherto," continued the Great 
Actor, "or rather, I should say, all so-called 
actors — I mean all those who tried to act be- 
fore me — have been entirely mistaken in their 
presentation. They have presented Hamlet as 
dressed in black velvet." 

"Yes, yes," we interjected, "in black velvet, 
yes!" 

"Very good. The thing is absurd," contin- 
140 



Ideal Interviews 



ued the Great Actor, as he reached down two 
or three heavy volumes from the shelf beside 
him. "Have you ever studied the Ehzabethan 
era?" 

"The which?" we asked modestly. 

"The Ehzabethan era?" 

We were silent. 

"Or the pre-Shakespearian tragedy?" 

We hung our head. 

"If you had, you would know that a Hamlet 
in black velvet is perfectly ridiculous. In 
Shakespeare's day — as I could prove in a mo- 
ment if you had the intelligence to understand 
it — there was no such thing as black velvet. It 
didn't exist." 

"And how then," we asked, intrigued, puz- 
zled and yet delighted, "do you present Ham- 
let?" 

"In brown velvet," said the Great Actor. 

"Great Heavens," we exclaimed, "this Is a 

revolution." 

I 

"It is. But that is only one part of my con- 
ception. The main thing will be my presenta- 
141 



Frenzied Fiction 



tion of what I may call the psychology of Ham- 
let." 

"The psychology!" we said. 

"Yes," resumed the Great Actor, "the psy- 
chology. To make Hamlet understood, I want 
to show him as a man bowed down by a great 
burden. He Is overwhelmed with Weltsch- 
merz. He carries in him the whole weight of 
the Zeitgeist; in fact, everlasting negation lies 
on him " 

"You mean," we said, trying to speak as 
cheerfully as we could, "that things are a little 
bit too much for him." 

"His will," went on the Great Actor, disre- 
garding our interruption, "is paralysed. He 
seeks to move In one direction and is hurled 
in another. One moment he sinks Into the 
abyss. The next, he rises above the clouds. 
His feet seek the ground, but find only the 
air " 

"Wonderful," we said, "but will you not 
need a good deal of machinery?" 

"Machinery!" exclaimed the Great Actor, 
142 



Ideal Interviews 



with a leonine laugh, "the machinery of 
thought, the mechanism of power, of magne- 
tism " 

"Ah," we said, "electricity." 

"Not at all," said the Great Actor; "you 
fail to understand. It is all done by mj ren- 
dering. Take, for example, the famous solilo- 
quy on death. You know it?" 

" 'To be or not to be,' " we began. 

"Stop," said the Great Actor. "Now observe. 
It is a soliloquy. Precisely. That is the key 
to it. It is something that Hamlet says to him- 
self. Not a word of it, in my interpretation, is 
actually spoken. All is done in absolute, un- 
broken silence." 

"How on earth," we began, "can you do 
that?" 

"Entirely and solely with my face" 

Good Heavens! Was It possible? iWe 
looked again, this time very closely, at the 
Great Actor's face. We realised with a thrill 
that it might be done. 

"I come before the audience so," he went 
143 



Frenzied Fiction 



©n, "and soliloquise — ^thus — follow my face, 
please >^ 

As the Great Actor spoke, he threw himself 
into a characteristic pose with folded arms, 
while gust after gust of emotion, of expression, 
of alternate hope, doubt and despair, swept — 
we might say — chased themselves across his 
features. 

"Wonderful!" we gasped. 

"Shakespeare's lines," said the Great Actor, 
as his face subsided to its habitual calm, "are 
not necessary; not, at least, with my acting. 
The lines, indeed, are mere stage directions, 
nothing more. I leave them out. This hap- 
pens again and again in the play. Take, for 
instance, the familiar scene where Hamlet holds 
the skull in his hand: Shakespeare here suggests 
the words 'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him 
well ' " 

"Yes, yes !" we interrupted, in spite of our- 
self, " 'a fellow of infinite jest ' " 

"Your intonation is awful," said the Actor. 
"But listen. In my interpretation I use no 
words at all. I merely carry the skull quietly 
144 



Ideal Interviews 



In my hand — very slowly — across the stage. 
There I lean against a pillar at the side, with 
the skull In the palm of my hand, and look at 
It In silence." 

"Wonderful!" we said. 

"I then cross over to the right of the stage — ■ 
very Impressively — and seat myself on a plain 
wooden bench — and remain for some time, 
looking at the skull." 

"Marvellous!" 

"I then pass to the back of the stage and lie 
down on my stomach, still holding the skull 
before my eyes: after holding this posture 
for some time, I crawl slowly forward, por- 
traying by the movement of my legs and stom- 
ach the whole sad history of Yorlck. Finally 
I turn my back on the audience, still holding the 
skull, and convey through the spasmodic move- 
ments of my back Hamlet's passionate grief at 
the loss of his friend." 

"Why!" we exclaimed, beside ourself with 
excitement, "this Is not merely a revolution, it 
Is a revelation." 

"Call It both," said the Great Actor. 

145 



Ft^enzied Fiction 



"The meaning of it Is," we went on, "that 
you practically don't need Shakespeare at all." 

"Exactly, I do not. I could do better with- 
out him. Shakespeare cramps me. What I 
really mean to convey Is not Shakespeare, but 
something greater, larger, — how shall I ex- 
press It — bigger — in fact " The Great 

Actor paused and we waited, our pencil poised 

in the air. " in fact," he murmured, as 

his eyes lifted in an expression of something 
like rapture, "in fact — ME." 

He remained thus, motionless, without mov- 
ing. We slipped gently to our hands and knees 
and crawled quietly to the door, and so down 
the stairs, our notebook in our teeth. 



Ill 
WITH OUR GREATEST SCIENTIST 

[As seen in Any of Our College Laboratories'^ 

It was among the retorts and test-tubes of 
his physical laboratory that we were privileged 
146 



Ideal Interviews 



to interview the Great Scientist. His back was 
towards us when we entered. With charac- 
teristic modesty he kept it so for some time 
after our entry. Even when he turned round 
and saw us his face did not react off us as we 
should have expected. 

He seemed to look at us, if such a thing were 
possible, without seeing us, or, at least, without 
wishing to see us. 

We handed him our card. 

He took it, read it, dropped it into a bowlful 
of sulphuric acid, and then, with a quiet gesture 
of satisfaction, turned again to his work. 

We sat for some time behind him. "This, 
then," we thought to ourselves (we always 
think to ourselves when we are left alone), "is 
the man, or rather is the back of the man, who 
has done more" (here we consulted the notes 
given us by our editor) "to revolutionise our 
conception of atomic dynamics than the back of 
any other man." 

Presently the Great Scientist turned towards 
us with a sigh that seemed to our ears to have 
147 



Frenzied Fiction 



a note of weariness In it. Something, we felt, 
mUwSt be making him tired. 

"What can I do for you?" he said. 

"Professor," we answered, "we have called 
upon you in response to an overwhelming de- 
mand on the part of the public " 

The Great Scientist nodded. 

" to learn something of your new re- 



searches and discoveries in" (here we consulted 
a minute card which we carried In our pocket) 
"In radio-active-emanations which are already 
becoming" (we consulted our card again) "a 
household word " 

The professor raised his hand as If to check 
us. 

"I would rather say," he murmured, "hello- 
radio-active " 

"So would we," we admitted, "much rath- 
er " 

"After all," said the Great Scientist, "helium 
shares in the most Intimate degree the proper- 
ties of radium. So, too, for the matter of 
that," he added In afterthought, "do thorium, 
and borlum !" 

148 



Ideal Interviews 



"Even borium!" we exclaimed, delighted, 
and writing rapidly in our note book. Already 
we saw ourselves writing up as our headline 
Borium Shares Properties of Thorium. 

"Just what is it," said the Great Scientist, 
"that you want to know?" 

"Professor," we answered, "what our jour- 
nal wants is a plain and simple explanation, so 
clear that even our readers can understand it, 
of the new scientific discoveries in radium. We 
understand that you possess, more than any 
other man, the gift of clear and lucid 
thought " 

The Professor nodded. 

" and that you are able to express your- 
self with greater simplicity than any two men 
now lecturing." 

The Professor nodded again. 

"Now, then," we said, spreading our notes on 
our knee, "go at it. Tell us, and, through us, 
tell a quarter of a million anxious readers just 
what all these new discoveries are about." 

"The whole thing," said the Professor, 
warming up to his work as he perceived from 
149 



Frenzied Fiction 



the motions of our face and ears our intelligent 
interest, "is simplicity itself. I can give it to 
you in a word " 

"That's it," we said. "Give it to us that 
way." 

"It amounts, if one may boil it down Into a 
phrase " 

"Boil it, boil it," we interrupted. 

" amounts, if one takes the mere gist of 

It " 

"Take it," we said, "take it." 

" amounts to the resolution of the ulti- 
mate atom." 

"Ha !" we exclaimed. 

"I must ask you first to clear your mind," 
the Professor continued, "of all conception of 
ponderable magnitude." 

We nodded. We had already cleared our 
mind of this. 

"In fact," added the Professor, with what we 
thought a quiet note of warning In his voice, "I 
need hardly tell you that what we are dealing 
with must be regarded as altogether ultra- 
microscopic." 

150 



Ideal Interviews 



We hastened to assure the professor that, in 
accordance with the high standards of honour 
represented by our journal, we should of course 
regard anything that he might say as ultra- 
microscopic and treat it accordingly. 

"You say, then," we continued, "that the es- 
sence of the problem is the resolution of the 
atom. Do you think you can give us any Idea 
of what the atom is ?" 

The professor looked at us searchingly. 

We looked back at him, openly and frankly. 
The moment was critical for our interview. 
Could he do it? Were we the kind of person 
that he could give it to? Could we get it if he 
did? 

"I think I can," he said. "Let us begin with 
the assumption that the atom is an infinitesimal 
magnitude. Very good. Let us grant, then, 
that though it is imponderable and indivisible 
it must have a spacial content? You grant me 
this?" 

"We do," we said, "we do more than this, we 
give it to you." 

"Very well. If spacial, it must have dimen- 

151 



Frenzied Fiction 



sion : if dimension — form : let us assume ex hy- 
fothesi the form to be that of a spheroid and 
see where it leads us." 

The professor was now intensely interested. 
He walked to and fro in his laboratory. His 
features worked with excitement. We worked 
ours, too, as sympathetically as we could. 

"There is no other possible method in in- 
ductive science," he added, "than to embrace 
some hypothesis, the most attractive that one 
can find, and remain with it " 

We nodded. Even in our own humble life 
after our day's work we had found *Jiis true. 

"Now," said the Professor, planting himself 
squarely in front of us, "assuming a spherical 
form, and a spacial content, assuming the 
dynamic forces that are familiar to us and as- 
suming — the thing is bold, I admit " 

We looked as bold as we could. 

" assuming that the tons, or nuclei of 

the atom — I know no better word " 

"Neither do we," we said. 



" that the nuclei move under the energy 

of such forces, what have we got?" 
152 



Ideal Interviews 



"Ha!" we said. 

"What have we got? Why, the simplest 
matter conceivable. The forces inside our 
atom — itself, mind you, the function of a circle 
— mark that -" 

We did. 

" ^becomes merely a function of r !" 

The Great Scientist paused with a laugh of 
triumph. 

"A function of r !" we repeated in delight. 

"Precisely. Our conception of ultimate mat- 
ter is reduced to that of an oblate spheroid de- 
scribed by the revolution of an ellipse on its 
own minor axis!" 

"Good heavens!" we said, "merely that." 

"Nothing else. And in that case any fur- 
ther calculation becomes a mere matter of the 
extraction of a root." 

"How simple," we murmured. 

"Is it not," said the Professor. "In fact, 
I am accustomed, in talking to my class, to give 
them a very clear idea, by simply taking as our 
root F — F being any finite constant " 

He looked at us sharply. We nodded. 

153 



Frenzied Fiction 



" — and raising F to the log of infinity. I find 
they apprehend it very readily." 

"Do they?" we murmured. Ourselves we 
felt as if the Log of Infinity carried us to ground 
higher than what we commonly care to tread 
on. 

"Of course," said the Professor, "the Log of 
Infinity is an Unknown." 

"Of course," we said, very gravely. We felt 
ourselves here in the presence of something that 
demanded our reverence. 

"But still," continued the Professor, almost 
jauntily, "we can handle the Unknown just as 
easily as anything else." 

This puzzled us. We kept silent. We 
thought it wiser to move on to more general 
ground. In any case, our notes were now 
nearly complete. 

"These discoveries, then," we said, "are ab- 
solutely revolutionary." 

"They are," said the Professor. 

"You have now, as we understand, got the 
atom — how shall we put it? — got it where you 
want it." 

154 



Ideal Interviews 



"Not exactly," said the Professor with a sad 
smile. 

"What do you mean?" we asked. 

"Unfortunately our analysis, perfect though 
It Is, stops short. We have no synthesis." 

The Professor spoke as in deep sorrow. 

"No synthesis," we moaned. We felt It was 
a cruel blow. But In any case our notes were 
now elaborate enough. We felt that our read- 
ers could do without a synthesis. We rose 
to go. 

"Synthetic dynamics," said the Professor, 
taking us by the coat, "is only beginning " 

"In that case " we murmured, disengag- 
ing his hand 

"But, wait, wait," he pleaded, "wait for an- 
other fifty years " 

"We will," we said, very earnestly, "but 
meantime as our paper goes to press this after- 
noon we must go now. In fifty years we will 
come back." 

"Oh, I see, I see," said the Professor, "you 
are writing all this for a newspaper. I see." 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Yes," we said, "we mentioned that at the 
beginning." 

"Ah!" said the Professor, "did you? Very 
possibly. Yes." 

"We propose," we said, "to feature the arti- 
cle for next Saturday." 

"Will it be long?" he asked. 

"About two columns," we answered. 

"And how much," said the Professor in a 
hesitating way, "do I have to pay you to put 
it in?" 

"How much which?" we asked. 

"How much do I have to pay?" 

"Why, Professor — " we began quickly. Then 
we checked ourselves. After all was it right to 
undeceive him, this quiet, absorbed man of sci- 
ence with his ideals, his atoms and his emana- 
tions. No, a hundred times no. Let him pay 
a hundred times. 

"It will cost you," we said very firmly, ^^ttn 
dollars." 

The professor began groping among his ap- 
paratus. We knew that he was looking for his 
purse. 

156 



Ideal Interviews 



"We should like also very much," we said, 
"to insert your picture along with the arti- 
cle " 

"Would that cost much?" he asked. 

"No, that is only five dollars." 

The Professor had meantime found his 
purse. 

"Would it be all right," he began, "that is, 
would you mind if I pay you the money now? 
I am apt to forget." 

"Quite all right," we answered. We said 
good-bye very gently and passed out. We felt 
somehov/ as if we had touched a higher life. 
"Such," we murmured, as we looked about the 
ancient campus, "are the men of science : are 
there, perhaps, any others of them round this 
morning that we might interview?" 



157 



Frenzied Fiction 



IV 

WITH OUR TYPICAL NOVELISTS 

[Edwin and Ethelinda Afterthought — Husband 
and Wife — In Their Delightful Home Life^ 

It was at their beautiful country place on the 
Woonagansett that we had the pleasure of in- 
terviewing the Afterthoughts. At their own 
cordial invitation, we had walked over from the 
nearest railway station, a distance of some 
fourteen miles. Indeed, as soon as they heard 
of our intention they invited us to walk. "We 
are so sorry not to bring you in the motor," 
they wrote, *'but the roads are so frightfully 
dusty that we might get dust on our chauffeur." 
This little touch of thoughtfulness is the key- 
note of their character. 

The house itself is a delightful old mansion 
giving on a wide garden, which gives in turn 
on a broad terrace giving on the river. 

The Eminent Novelist met us at the gate. 
We had expected to find the author of Angela 
158 



Ideal Interviews 



Rivers and The Garden of Desire 2l pale 
aesthetic type (we have a way of expecting 
the wrong thing in our interviews). We could 
not resist a shock of surprise (indeed we sel- 
dom do) at finding him a burly out-of-door 
man weighing, as he himself told us, a hundred 
stone in his stockinged feet (we think he said 
stone). 

He shook hands cordially. 

"Come and see my pigs," he said. 

"We wanted to ask you," we began, as we 
went down the walk, "something about your 
books." 

"Let's look at the pigs first," he said. "Are 
you anything of a pig man?" 

We are always anxious in our interviews to 
be all things to all men. But we were com- 
pelled to admit that we were not much of 
a pig man. 

"Ah!" said the Great Novelist, "perhaps 
you are more of a dog man?" 

"Not altogether a dog man," we answered. 

"Anything of a bee man?" he asked. 

159 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Something," we said (we were once stung 
by a bee). 

"Ah!" he said, "you shall have a go at the 
bee hives, then, right away?" 

We assured him that we were willing to 
postpone a go at the bee hives till later. 

"Come along, then, to the styes," said the 
Great Novelist, and he added — "perhaps 
you're not much of a breeder." 

We blushed. We thought of the five little 
faces around the table for which we provide 
food by writing our interviews. 

"No," we said, "we were not much of a 
breeder." 

"Now then," said the Great Novelist as we 
reached our goal, "how do you like this stye?" 

"Very much indeed," we said. 

"I've put in a new tile draining — my own 
plan. You notice how sweet it keeps the stye." 

We had not noticed this. 

"I am afraid," said the Novelist, "that the 
pigs are all asleep inside." 

We begged him on no- account to waken 
them. He offered to open the little door at 
1 60 



Ideal Interviews 



the side and let us crawl in. We insisted that 
we could not think of intruding. 

"What we would like," we said, "is to hear 
something of your methods of work in novel 
writing." We said this with very peculiar con- 
viction. Quite apart from the immediate pur- 
poses of our interview, we have always been 
most anxious to know by what process novels 
are written. If we could get to know this, we 
would write one ourselves. 

"Come and see my bulls first," said the 
Novelist. "I've got a couple of young bulls 
here in the paddock that will interest you." 

We felt sure that they would. 

He led us to a little green fence. Inside it 
were two ferocious looking animals, eating 
grain. They rolled their eyes upwards at us 
as they ate. 

"How do those strike you?" he asked. 

We assured him that they struck us as our 
beau ideal of bulls. 

"Like to walk in beside them?" said the 
Novelist, opening a little gate. 
i6i 



Frenzied Fiction 



We drew back. Was it fair to disturb these 
bulls? 

The Great Novelist noticed our hesitation. 

"Don't be afraid," he said. "They're not 
likely to harm you. I send my hired man right 
in beside them every morning, without the 
slightest hesitation." 

We looked at the Eminent Novelist with 
admiration. We realised that like so many of 
our writers, actors, and even our thinkers, of 
to-day, he was an open-air man in every sense 
of the word. 

But we shook our heads. 

Bulls, we explained, were not a department 
of research for which we were equipped. 
What we wanted, we said, was to learn some- 
thing of his methods of work. 

"My methods of work?" he answered, as 
we turned up the path again. "Well, really, 
I hardly know that I have any." 

"What is your plan or method," we asked, 
getting out our note book and pencil, "of lay- 
ing the beginning of a new novel?" 

"My usual plan," said the Novelist, "is to 
162 



Ideal Interviews 



come out here and sit in the stye till I get myj' 
characters." 

"Does it take long?" we questioned. 

"Not very. I generally find that a quiet 
half -hour spent among the hogs will give me' 
at least my leading character." 

"And what do you do next?" 

"Oh, after that I generally light a pipe and 
go and sit among the bee hives looking for an 
incident." 

"Do you get it?" we asked. 

"Invariably. After that I make a few notes, 
then go off for a ten mile tramp with my 
esquimaux dogs, and get back in time to have 
a go through the cattle sheds and take a romp 
with the young bulls." 

We sighed. We couldn't help it. Novel 
writing seemed further away than ever. 

"Have you also a goat on the premises?" 
we asked. 

"Oh, certainly. A ripping old fellow — come 
along and see him." 

We shook our heads. No doubt our dis- 
appointment showed in our face. It often 
163 



Frenzied Fiction 



does. We felt that it was altogether right and 
wholesome that our great novels of to-day 
should be written in this fashion with the help 
of goats, dogs, hogs and young bulls. But we 
felt, too, that it was not for us. 

We permitted ourselves one further ques- 
tion. 

"At what time," we said, "do you rise in the 
morning?" 

"Oh anywhere between four and five," said 
the Novelist. 

"Ah! and do you generally take a cold dip 
as soon as you are up — even in winter?" 

"I do." 

"You prefer, no doubt," we said, with a de- 
jection that we could not conceal, "to have 
water with a good coat of ice over it?" 

"Oh, certainly!" 

We said no more. We have long under- 
stood the reasons for our own failure in life, 
but it was painful to receive a renewed cor- 
roboration of it. This ice question has stood 
in our way for forty-seven years. 
164 



Ideal Interviews 



THe Great Novelist seemed to note our de- 
jection. 

"Come to the house," he said, "my wife 
will give you a cup of tea." 

In a few moments we had forgotten all our 
troubles in the presence of one of the most 
charming chatelaines it has been our lot to 
meet. 

We sat on a low stool immediately beside 
Ethelinda Afterthought, who presided in her 
own gracious fashion over the tea urn. 

"So you want to know something of my 
methods of work?" she said, as she poured 
hot tea over our leg. 

"We do," we answered, taking out our little 
book and recovering something of our enthu- 
siasm. We do not mind hot tea being poured 
over us if people treat us as a human being. 

"Can you indicate," we continued, "what 
method you follow in beginning one of your 
novels?" 

"I always begin," said Ethelinda After- 
thought, "with a study." 

"A study?" we queried. 
165 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Yes. I mean a study of actual facts. Take, 
for example, my Leaves from the Life of a 
Steam Laundrywoman — ^more tea?" 

"No, no," we said. 

"Well, to make that book I first worked two 
years in a laundry." 

"Two years!" we exclaimed. "And why?" 

"To get the atmosphere." 

"The steam?" we questioned. 

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Afterthought, "I did 
that separately. I took a course in steam at a 
technical school." 

"Is it possible?" we said, our heart be- 
ginning to sink again. "Was all that neces- 
sary?" 

"I don't see how one could do it otherwise. 
The story opens, as no doubt you remember 
— tea? — in the boiler room of the laundry." 

"Yes," we said, moving our leg, — "no, 
thank you." 

"So you see the only possible point d'appui 
was to begin with a description of the inside 
of the boiler." 

We nodded. "A masterly thing," we said. 
i66 



Ideal Interviews 



"My wife," Interrupted the Great Novelist, 
who was sitting with the head of a huge Danish 
hound in his lap, sharing his buttered toast with 
the dog while he adjusted a set of trout flies, 
"is a great worker." 

"Do you always work on that method?" we 
asked. 

"Always," she answered. "For Federica of 
the Factory I spent six months in a knitting 
mill. For Marguerite of the Mud Flats I 
made special studies for months and months." 

"Of what sort?" we asked. 

"In mud. Learning to model It. You see 
for a story of that sort the first thing needed 
is a thorough knowledge of mud — all kinds 
of it." 

"And what are you doing next?" we in- 
quired. 

"My next book," said the Lady Novelist, 
"is to be a study — tea ? — of the pickle Industry 
— perfectly new ground." 

"A fascinating field," we murmured. 

"And quite new. Several of our writers 
have done the slaughter house, and in England 
167 



Frenzied Fiction 



a good deal has been done in jam. But so 
far no one has done pickles. I should like, 
if I could," added Ethelinda Afterthought, 
with the graceful modesty that is characteristic 
of her, "to make it the first of a series of pickle 
novels, showing, don't you know, the whole 
pickle district, and perhaps following a family 
of pickle workers for four or live generations." 

"Four or five!" we said enthusiastically. 
"Make it ten! And have you any plan for 
work beyond that?" 

"Oh, yes indeed," laughed the Lady Novel- 
ist. "I am always planning ahead. What I 
want to do after that is a study of the inside 
of a penitentiary." 

"Of the inside?" we said, with a shudder. 

"Yes. To do it, of course, I shall go to jail 
for two or three years!" 

"But how can you get in?" we asked, 
thrilled at the quiet determination of the frail 
woman before us. 

"I shall demand it as a right," she answered 
quietly. "I shall go to the authorities, at the 
head of a band of enthusiastic women, and de- 
i68 



Ideal Interviews 



mand that I shall be sent to jail. Surely after 
the work I have done, that much is coming to 
me." 

"It certainly is," we said warmly. 

We rose to go. 

Both the novelists shook hands with us with 
great cordiality. Mr. Afterthought walked 
as far as the front door with us and showed 
us a short cut past the bee hives, that could 
take us directly through the bull pasture to 
the main road. 

We walked away in the gathering darkness 
of evening, very quietly. We made up our 
mind as we went that novel writing is not for 
us. We must reach the penitentiary in some 
other way. 

But we thought it well to set down our inter- 
view as a guide to others. 



169 



IX.— The New Education 

SO you're going back to college in a fort- 
night," I said to the Bright Young 
Thing on the verandah of the summer 
hotel. "Aren't you sorry?" 
"In a way I am," she said, "but in another 
sense I'm glad to go back. One can't loaf all 
the time." 

She looked up from her rocking chair over 

her Red Cross knitting with great earnestness. 

How full of purpose these modern students 

are, I thought to myself. In my time we used 

to go back to college as to a treadmill. 

"I know that," I said, "but what I mean Is 
that college, after all, is a pretty hard grind. 
Things like mathematics and Greek are no joke, 
are they? In my day, as I remember it, we 
used to think spherical trigonometry about the 
hardest stuff of the lot." 
She looked dubious. 

170 



The New Education 



"I didn't elect mathematics," she said. 

"Oh," I said, "I see. So you don't have to 
take it. And what hanje you elected?" 

"For this coming half semester — that's six 
weeks, you know — I've elected Social Endeav- 
our." 

"Ah," I said, "that's since my day, what is 
it?" 

"Oh, it's awfully interesting. It's the study 
of conditions." 

"What kind of conditions?" I asked. 

"All conditions. Perhaps I can't explain it 
properly. But I have the prospectus of it in- 
doors if you'd like to see it. We take up So- 
ciety." 

"And what do you do with it?" 

"Analyse it," she said. 

"But it must mean reading a tremendous lot 
of books." 

"No," she answered. "We don't use books 
in this course. It's all Laboratory Work." 

"Now I am mystified," I said, "what do you 
mean by Laboratory Work?" 

"Well," answered the girl student with a 
171 



Frenzied Fiction 



thoughtful look upon her face. "You see, we 
are supposed to break society up into its ele- 
ments." 

"In six weeks?" 

"Some of the girls do it in six weeks. Some 
put in a whole semester and take twelve weeks 
at it." 

"So as to break up pretty thoroughly?" I 
said. 

"Yes," she assented, "but most of the girls 
think six weeks is enough." 

"That ought to pulverise it pretty completely. 
But how do you go at it?" 

"Well," the girl said, "it's all done with 
Laboratory Work. We take, for instance, de- 
partment stores. I think that is the first thing 
we do ; we take up the department store." 

"And what do you do with it?" 

"We study it as a Social Germ." 

"Ah!" I said, "as a Social Germ." 

"Yes," said the girl, delighted to see that I 
was beginning to understand, "as a Germ. All 
the work is done in the concrete. The class 
172 



The New Education 



goes down with the professor to the department 
store itself " 



"And then- 



"Then they walk all through it, observing." 

"But have none of them ever been in a de- 
partmental store before?" 

"Oh, of course, but, you see, we go as Ob- 
servers." 

"Ah, now, I understand. You mean you 
don't buy anything and so you are able to watch 
everything?" 

"No," she said, "it's not that. We do buy 
things. That's part of it. Most of the girls 
like to buy little knick-knacks and anyway it 
gives them a good chance to do their shopping 
while they're there. But while they are there 
they are observing. Then afterwards they make 
charts." 

"Charts of what?" I asked. 

"Charts of the employees; they're used to 
show the brain movement involved." 

"Do you find much?" 

"Well," she said hesitatingly, "the idea is to 
reduce all the employees to a Curve." 
173 



Frenzied Fiction 



"To a Curve?" I exclaimed, "an In or an 
Out." 

"No, no, not exactly that. Didn't you use 
Curves when you were at college?" 

"Never," I said. 

"Oh, well, nowadays nearly everything, you 
know, is done into a Curve. We put them on 
the board." 

"And what is this particular Curve of the 
employee used for?" I asked. 

"Why," said the student, "the idea is that 
from the Curve we can get the Norm of the 
employee." 

"Get his Norm?" I asked. 

"Yes, get the Norm. That stands for the 
Root Form of the employee as a social factor." 

"And what can you do with that?" 

"Oh, when we have that we can tell what the 
employee would do under any and every circum- 
stance. At least that's the idea, — though I'm 
really only quoting," she added, breaking off 
in a diffident way, "from what Miss Thinker, 
the professor of Social Endeavour, says. She's 
really fine. She's making a general chart of 
174 



The New Education 



the female employees of one of the biggest 
stores to show what percentage In case of fire 
would jump out of window and what percentage 
would run to the fire escape." 

"It's a wonderful course," I said, "we had 
nothing like it when I went to college. And 
does it only take in departmental stores?" 

"No," said the girl, "the laboratory work 
includes for this semester ice-cream parlours as 
well." 

"What do you do with themf 

"We take them up as Social Cells, Nuclei, I 
think the professor calls them." 

"And how do you go at them?" I asked. 

"Why, the girls go to them in little labora- 
tory groups and study them." 

"They eat ice-cream in them?" 

"They have to," she said, "to make it con- 
crete. But while they are doing it they are 
considering the ice-cream parlour merely as a 
section of social protoplasm." 

"Does the professor go?" I asked. 

"Oh, yes, she heads each group. Professor 
Thinker never spares herself from work." 
175 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Dear me I" I said, "you must be kept very 
busy. And is Social Endeavour all that you 
are going to do?" 

"No," she answered, "I'm electing a half- 
course in Nature Work as well." 

"Nature Work? Weill well! That, I sup- 
pose, means cramming up a lot of biology and 
zoology, does it not?" 

"No," said the girl, "it's not exactly done 
with books. I believe it is all done by Field 
Work." 

"Field Work?" 

"Yes, Field Work four times a week and an 
Excursion every Saturday." 

"And what do you do in the Field Work?" 

"The girls," she answered, "go out in groups 
anywhere out of doors, and make a Nature 
Study of anything they see." 

"How do they do that?" I asked. 

"Why, they look at it. Suppose, for exam- 
ple, they come to a stream or a pond or any- 
thing " 



"Yes " 

176 



The New Education 



"Well, they look at it." 

"Had they never done that before?" I asked. 

"Ah, but they look at it as a Nature Unit. 
Each girl must take forty units in the course. 
I think we only do one unit each day we go 
out." 

"It must," I said, "be pretty fatiguing work, 
and what about the Excursion?" 

"That's every Saturday. We go out with 
Miss Stalk, the professor of Ambulation." 

"And where do you go?" 

"Oh, anywhere. One day we go perhaps for 
a trip on a steamer and another Saturday some- 
where in motors, and so on." 

"Doing what?" I asked. 

"Field Work. The aim of the course, — I'm 
afraid I'm quoting Miss Stalk but I don't mind, 
she's really fine, — is to break nature into its 
elements " 



"I see- 



"So as to view it as the external structure of 
Society and make deductions from it." 
"Have you made any?" I asked. 
"Oh, no," she laughed, "I'm only starting 
177 



Frenzied Fiction 



the work this term. But, of course, I shall have 
to. Each girl makes at least one deduction at 
the end of the course. Some of the seniors 
make two or three. But you have to make 
one." 

"It's a great course," I said. "No wonder 
you are going to be busy; and as you say, how 
much better than loafing round here doing noth- 
ing." 

"Isn't it?" said the girl student with enthusi- 
asm in her eyes, "It gives one such a sense of 
purpose, such a feeling of doing something." 

"It must," I answered. 

"Oh, goodness," she exclaimed, "there's the 
lunch bell. I must skip and get ready." 

She was just vanishing from my side when 
the Burly Male Student, who was also staying 
in the hotel, came puffing up after his five-mile 
run. He was getting himself into trim for en- 
listment, so he told me. He noted the retreat- 
ing form of the college girl as he sat down. 

"I've just been talking to her," I said, "about 
her college work. She seems to be studying a 
178 



The New Educatio7i 



queer lot of stuff, — Social Endeavour and all 
that!" 

"Awful piffle," said the young man, "but the 
girls naturally run to all that sort of rot, you 
know." 

"Now, your work," I went on, "is no doubt 
very different. I mean what you were taking 
before the war came along. I suppose you fel- 
lows have an awful dose of mathematics and 
philology and so on just as I did in my college 
days?" 

Something like a blush came across the face 
of the handsome youth, 

"Well, no," he said, "I didn't co-opt mathe- 
matics. At our college, you know, we co-opt 
two majors and two minors." 

"I see," I said, "and what were you co-opt- 
ing?" 

"I co-opted Turkish, Music, and Religion," 
he answered. 

"Oh, yes," I said with a sort of reverential 
respect, "fitting yourself for a position of choir- 
master in a Turkish cathedral, no doubt." 

"No, no," he said, "I'm going into insurance; 
179 



Frenzied Fiction 



but, you see, those subjects fitted in better than 
anything else." 

"Fitted in?" 

"Yes. Turkish comes at nine, music at ten 
and religion at eleven. So they make a good 
combination; they leave a man free to " 

"To develop his mind," I said, "we used to 
find in my college days that lectures interfered 
with it badly. But now, Turkish, that must be 
an interesting language, eh?" 

"Search me!" said the student. "All you 
have to do is answer the roll and go out. Forty 
roll-calls give you one Turkish unit, — ^but, say, 
I must get on, I've got to change. So long." 

I could not help reflecting, as the young man 
left me, on the great changes that have come 
over our college education. It was a relief to 
me later in the day to talk with a quiet, sombre 
-man, himself a graduate student in philosophy, 
on this topic. He agreed with me that the old 
strenuous studies seem to be very largely aban- 
doned. 

I looked at the sombre man with respect. 

"Now your work," I said, "is very different 
i8o 



The New Education 



from what these young people are doing, — 
hard, solid, definite effort. What a relief it 
must be to you to get a brief vacation up here. 
I couldn't help thinking to-day as I watched you 
moving round doing nothing, how fine it must 
feel for you to come up here after your hard 
work and put in a month of out-and-out loafing." 

"Loafing!" he said indignantly, "I'm not 
loafing. I'm putting in a half summer course 
in Introspection. That's why I'm here. I get 
credit for two majors for my time here." 

"Ah!" I said, as gently as I could, "you get 
credit here." 

He left me. I am still pondering over our 
new education. Meantime I think I shall enter 
my little boy's name on the books of Tuskegee 
College where the education is still old-fash- 
ioned. 



i8i 



X.—The Errors of Santa Claus 

IX was Christmas Eve. 
The Browns, who lived in the adjoin- 
ing house, had been dining with the 
Joneses. 
Brown and Jones were sitting over wine and 
walnuts at the table. The others had gone up- 
stairs. 

"What are you giving to your boy for Christ- 
mas?" asked Brown. 

"A train," said Jones, "new kind of thing- 
automatic." 

"Let's have a look at it," said Brown. 
Jones fetched a parcel from the sideboard 
and began unwrapping it. 

"Ingenious thing, isn't it?" he said, "goes 
on its own rails. Queer how kids love to play 
with trains, isn't it?"' 

"Yes," assented Brown, "how are the rails 
fixed?" 

182 



The Errors of Santa Claus 

"Walt, I'll show you," said Jones, "just help 
me to shove these dinner things aside and roll 
back the cloth. There ! See ! You lay the 
rails like that and fasten them at the ends, 
so r 

"Oh, yes, I catch on, makes a grade, doesn't 
it? Just the thing to amuse a child, isn't it? 
I got Willie a toy aeroplane." 

"I know, they're great. I got Edwin one on 
his birthday. But I thought I'd get him a train 
this time. I told him Santa Claus was going 
to bring him something altogether new this 
time. Edwin, of course, believes in Santa 
Claus absolutely. Say, look at this locomotive, 
would you? It has a spring coiled up Inside 
the fire box." 

"Wind her up," said Brown with great in- 
terest, "let's see her go." 

"All right," said Jones, "just pile up two or 
three plates or something to lean the end of the 
rails on. There, notice the way it buzzes be- 
fore it starts. Isn't that a great thing for a 
kid, eh?" 

"Yes," said Brown, "and say I see this little 
183 



Frenzied Fiction 



string to pull the whistle. By Gad, it toots, 
eh? Just like real?" 

"Now then, Brown," Jones went on, "you 
hitch on those cars and I'll start her. I'll be 
engineer, eh I" 

Half an hour later Brown and Jones were 
still playing trains on the dining-room table. 

But their wives upstairs in the drawing room 
hardly noticed their absence. They were too 
much Interested. 

"Oh, I think it's perfectly sweet," said Mrs. 
Brown, "just the loveliest doll I've seen in 
years. I must get one like it for Ulvina. 
Won't Clarlsse be perfectly enchanted?" 

"Yes," answered Mrs. Jones, "and then she'll 
have all the fun of arranging the dresses. Chil- 
dren love that so much. Look! there are three 
little dresses with the doll, aren't they cute? 
All cut out and ready to stitch together." 

"Oh, how perfectly lovely," exclaimed Mrs. 

Brown, "I think the mauve one would suit the 

doll best — don't you? — with such golden hair 

- — only don't you think it would make It much 

184 



The Errors of Santa Claus 

nicer to turn back the collar, so, and to put a 
little band — so?" 

"What a good Idea !" said Mrs. Jones, "do 
let's try It. Just wait, I'll get a needle In a 
minute. I'll tell Clarlsse that Santa Claus 
sewed it himself. The child believes in Santa 
Claus absolutely." 

And half an hour later Mrs. Jones and Mrs. 
Brown were so busy stitching dolls' clothes that 
they could not hear the roaring of the little train 
up and down the dining table, and had no idea 
what the four children were doing. 

Nor did the children miss their mothers. 

"Dandy, aren't they?" Edwin Jones was say- 
ing to little Willie Brown, as they sat in Edwin's 
bedroom. "A hundred in a box, with cork 
tips, and see, an amber mouthpiece that fits into 
a little case at the side. Good present for dad, 
eh?" 

"Fine !" said Willie, appreciatively, "I'm giv- 
ing father cigars." 

"I know, I thought of cigars too. Men al- 
ways like cigars and cigarettes. You can't go 
185 



Frenzied Fiction 



wrong on them. Say, would you like to try 
one or two of these cigarettes? We can take 
them from the bottom. You'll like them, 
they're Russian, — away ahead of Egyptian." 

"Thanks," answered WlUie. "I'd like one 
immensely. I only started smoking last spring 
— on my twelfth birthday. I think a feller's 
a fool to begin smoking cigarettes too soon, 
don't you? It stunts him. I waited till I was 
twelve." 

"Me too," said Edwin, as they lighted their 
cigarettes. "In fact, I wouldn't buy them now 
if it weren't for dad. I simply had to give him 
something from Santa Claus. He believes in 
Santa Claus absolutely, you know." 

And while this was going on, Clarisse was 
showing little Ulvina the absolutely lovely little 
bridge set that she got for her mother. "Aren't 
these markers perfectly charming?" said Ul- 
vina, "and don't you love this little Dutch de- 
sign — or Is it Flemish, darling?" 

"Dutch," said Clarisse, "isn't it quaint? And 
aren't these the dearest little things — for put- 
i86 



The Errors of Santa Claus 

ting the money in when you play. I needn't 
have got them with it — they'd have sold the 
rest separately — ^but I think it's too utterly slow 
playing without money, don't you?" 

"Oh, abominable," shuddered Ulvina, "but 
your mamma never plays for money, does she?" 

"Mamma! Oh, gracious, no. Mamma's 
far too slow for that. But I shall tell her that 
Santa Claus insisted on putting in the little 
money boxes." 

"I suppose she believes in Santa Claus, just 
as my Mamma does." , 

"Oh, absolutely," said Clarisse, and added, 
"What if we play a little game ! With a dou- 
ble dummy, the French way, or Norwegian 
Skat, if you like. That only needs two." 

"All right," agreed Ulvina, and in a few 
minutes they were deep in a game of cards with 
a little pile of pocket money beside them. 

About half an hour later, all the members 

of the two families were down again in the 

drawing room. But of course nobody said 

anything about the presents. In any case they 

187 



Frenzied Fiction 



were all too busy looking at the beautiful big 
Bible, with maps in it, that the Joneses had 
bought to give to Grandfather. They all 
agreed that with the help of it, Grandfather 
could hunt up any place in Palestine in a mo- 
ment, day or night. 

But upstairs, away upstairs in a sitting room 
of his own, Grandfather Jones was looking with 
an affectionate eye at the presents that stood 
beside him. There was a beautiful whiskey 
decanter, with silver filigree outside ( and whis- 
key inside) for Jones, and for the little boy 
a big nickel-plated Jew's harp. 

Later on, far in the night, the person, or the 
influence, or whatever it is called Santa Claus, 
took all the presents and placed them in the 
people's stockings. 

And, being blind as he always has been, he 
gave the wrong things to the wrong people — 
in fact, he gave them just as indicated above. 

But the next day, in the course of Christmas 
morning, the situation straightened itself out, 
just as it always does. 

i88 



The Erroi's of Santa Claus 

Indeed, by ten o'clock, Brown and Jones were 
playing with the train, and Mrs. Brown and 
Mrs. Jones were making dolls' clothes, and the 
boys were smoking cigarettes, and Clarisse and 
Ulvina were playing cards for their pocket 
money. 

And upstairs — away up — Grandfather was 
drinking whiskey and playing the Jew's harp. 

And so Christmas, just as it always does, 
turned out all right after all. 



189 



XI, — Lost in New York— 
A Visitor s Soliloquy 

WELL! Weill 
Whatever has been happening 
to this place, to New York? 
Changed? Changed since I was 
here In '86? Well, I should say so. 

The hack-driver of the old days that I used 
to find waiting for me at the station curb, with 
that impossible horse of his — the hack-driver 
with his bulbous red face, and the nice smell of 
rye whiskey all 'round him for yards — gone, so 
it seems, forever. 

And in place of him this — what Is it they 
call it? — this taxi — with a clean-shaven cut- 
throat steering it. "Get in," he says. Just 
that. He doesn't offer to help me or lift my 
satchel. All right, young man, I'm crawling in. 
That's the machine that marks It, eh? I 
190 



Lost in New York — A Visitor's Soliloqwy 

suppose they have them rigged up so they can 
punch up anything they like. I thought so — he 
hits it up to fifty cents before we start. But I 
saw him do it. Well, I can stand for it this 
time. I'll not be caught in one of these again. 

The hotel? All right, I'm getting out. My 
hotel? But what is it they have done to it? 
They must have added ten stories to it. It 
reaches to the sky. But I'll not try to look to 
the top of it. Not with this satchel in my hand : 
no, sir! I'll wait till I'm safe inside. In there 
I'll feel all right. They'll know me in there. 
They'll remember right away my visit in the 
fall of '86. They won't easily have forgotten 
that big dinner I gave — nine people at a dollar 
fifty a plate, with the cigars extra. The clerk 
will remember me, all right. . . . 

Know me ? Not they. The clerk know me I 
How could he? For it seems now there Isn't 
any clerk, or not as there used to be. They 
have subdivided him somehow into five or six. 
There is a man behind a desk, a majestic sort 
of man, waving his hand. It would be sheer 
madness to claim acquaintance with him. There 
191 



Frenzied Fiction 



is another with a great book, adjusting cards in 
it; and another, behind glass labelled "Cash- 
ier," and busy as a bank; there are two with 
mail and telegrams. They are all too busy to 
know me. 

Shall I sneak up near to them, keeping my 
satchel in my hand? I wonder, do they see me ? 
Can they see me, a mere thing like me? I am 
within ten feet of them, but I am certain that 
they cannot see me. I am, and I feel it, abso- 
lutely invisible. 

Ha I One has seen me. He turns to me, 
or rather he rounds upon me, with the words 
"Well, sir?" That, and nothing else, sharp 
and hard. There is none of the ancient kindly 
pretence of knowing my name, no reaching out 
a welcome hand and calling me Mr. Er — Er — 
till he has read my name upside down while I 
am writing it, and can address me as a familiar 
friend. No friendly questioning about the 
crops in my part of the country. The crops, 
forsooth! What do these young men know 
about crops? 

A room? Had I any reservation? Any 
192 



Lost in New York — A Visitor's Soliloquy 

which? Any reservation. Oh, I see, had I 
written down from home to say that I was com- 
ing? No, I had not because the truth is I came 
at very short notice. I didn't know till a week 

before that my brother-in-law He is not 

listening. He has moved away. I will stand 
and wait till he comes back. I am intruding 
here ; I had no right to disturb these people like 
this. 

Oh, I can have a room at eleven o'clock. 
When it is which? — is vacated. Oh, yes, I see, 
when the man in it gets up and goes away. I 
didn't for the minute catch on to what the word 
He has stopped listening. 

Never mind, I can wait. From eight to 
eleven is only three hours, anyway. I will move 
about here and look at things. If I keep mov- 
ing they will notice me less. Ha ! books and 
newspapers and magazines — what a stack of 
them ! Like a regular bookstore. I will stand 
here and take a look at some of them. Eh! 
what's that? Did I want to buy anything? 
Well, no, I hadn't exactly — I was just — Oh, I 
see, they're on sale. All right, yes, give me this 
193 



Frenzied Fiction 



one — fifty cents — all right — and this and these 
others. That's all right, miss, I'm not stingy. 
They always say of me up in our town that when 
I She has stopped listening. 

Never mind. I will walk up and down again 
with the magazines under my arm. That will 
make people think I live here. Better still if 
I could put the magazines in my satchel. But 
how? There is no way to set it down and undo 
the straps. I wonder if I could dare put it 
for a minute on that table, the polished one — ? 
Or no, they wouldn't likely allow a man to put a 
bag there. 

Well, I can wait. Anyway, It's eight o'clock 
and soon, surely, breakfast will be ready. As 
soon as I hear the gong I can go in there. I 
wonder if I could find out first where the dining- 
room is. It used always to be marked across 
the door, but I don't seem to see it. Darn it, 
I'll ask that man in uniform. If I'm here pre- 
pared to spend my good money to get breakfast 
I guess I'm not scared to ask a simple question 
of a man in uniform. Or no, I'll not ask him. 
I'll try this one — or no, he's busy. I'll ask this 
194 



Lost in New York — A Visitor's Soliloquy 

other boy. Say, would you mind, if you please, 
telling me, please, which way the dining-room 
— Eh, what? Do I want which? The grill 
room or the palm room? Why, I tell you, 
young man, I just wanted to get some breakfast 
if it's — what? Do I want what? I didn't 
quite get that — a la carte? No, thanks — and, 
what's that? table de what? in the palm room? 
No, I just wanted — but it doesn't matter. I'll 
wait 'round here and look about till I hear the 
gong. Don't worry about me. 

What's that? What's that boy shouting out 
— that boy with the tray? A call for Mr. 
Something or Other — say, must be something 
happened pretty serious! A call for Mr. — 
why, that's for me! Hullo! Here I am! 
Here, it's Me! Here I am — wanted at the 
desk? all right, I'm coming, I'm hurrying. I 
guess something's wrong at home, eh ! Here I 
am. That's my name. I'm ready. 

Oh, a room. You've got a room for me. 
All right. The fifteenth floor! Good Heav- 
ens! Away up there! Never mind, I'll take 
195 



Frenzied Fiction 



it. Can't give me a bath? That's all right. 
I had one. 

Elevator over this way? All right, I'll come 
along. Thanks, I can carry it. But I don't 
see any elevator? Oh, this door in the wall? 
Well! I'm hanged. This the elevator! It 
certainly has changed. The elevator that I re- 
member had a rope in the middle of It, and you 
pulled the rope up as you went, wheezing and 
clanking all the way to the fifth floor. But this 
looks a queer sort of machine. How do you 
do — Oh, I beg your pardon. I was in the road 
of the door, I guess. Excuse me, I'm afraid 
I got In the way of your elbow. It's all right, 
you didn't hurt — or, not bad. 

Gee whiz ! It goes fast. Are you sure you 
can stop it? Better be careful, young man. 
There was an elevator once in our town that — 
fifteenth floor? All right. 

This room, eh! Great Scott, it's high up. 

Say, better not go too near that window, boy. 

That would be a hell of a drop if a feller fell 

out. You needn't wait. Oh, I see. I beg 

196 



Lost in New York — A Visitor's Soliloquy 

your pardon. I suppose a quarter is enough, 
eh? 

Well, It's a relief to be alone. But say, this 
is high upl And what a noise! What is it 
they're doing out there, away out in the air, 
with all that clatter — building a steel building, 
I guess. Well, those fellers have their nerve, 
all right. I'll sit further back from the win- 
dow. 

It's lonely up here. In the old days I could 
have rung a bell and had a drink sent up to 
the room; but away up here on the jfifteenth 
floor! Oh, no, they'd never send a drink clean 
up to the fifteenth floor. Of course, in the old 
days, I could have put on my canvas slippers 
and walked down to the bar and had a drink 
and talked to the bartender. 

But of course they wouldn't have a bar in a 
place like this. I'd like to go down and see, 
but I don't know that I'd care to ask, anyway. 
No, I guess I'll just sit and wait. Some one will 
come for me, I guess, after a while. 

If I were back right now in our town, I could 
walk into Ed. Clancey's restaurant and have 
197 



Frenzied Fiction 



ham and eggs, or steak and eggs, or anything, 
for thirty-five cents. 

Our town up home is a peach of a little town, 
anyway. 

Say, I just feel as if I'd like to take my satchel 
and jump clean out of that window. It would 
be a good rebuke to them. 

But, pshaw ! what would they care? 



198 



XII.— 'This Strenuous Age 

SOMETHING Is happening, I regret to 
find, to the world In which we used to 
live. The poor old thing Is being 
"speeded up." There Is "efficiency" in 
the air. Offices open at eight o'clock. Mil- 
lionaires lunch on a baked apple. Bankers eat 
practically nothing. A college president has 
declared that there are more foot pounds of 
energy in a glass of peptonlsed milk than In — 
something else, I forget what. All this is very 
fine. Yet somehow I feel out of It. 

My friends are failing me. They won't sit 
up after midnight. They have taken to sleep- 
ing out of doors, on porches and pergolas. 
Some, I understand, merely roost on plain 
wooden bars. They rise early. They take 
deep breathing. They bathe In Ice water. 
They are no good. 

This change, I am sure, Is excellent. It is, 
199 



Frenzied Fiction 



I am certain, just as it ought to be. I am 
merely saying, quietly and humbly, that I am 
not in it. I am being left behind. Take, for 
example, the case of alcohol. That, at least, 
is what it Is called now. There were days when 
we called it Bourbon whiskey and Tom Gin, 
and when the very name of It breathed romance. 
That time is past. 

The poor stuff is now called alcohol, and 
none so low that he has a good word for it. 
Quite right, I am certain. I don't defend it. 
Alcohol, they are saying to-day, if taken in suf- 
ficient quantities, tears all the outer coating off 
the diaphragm. It leaves the epigastric tissue, 
so I am informed, a useless wreck. 

This I don't deny. It gets, they tell me, into 
the brain, I don't dispute It. It turns the 
prosencephalon into mere punk. I know it. 
I've felt it doing it. They tell me — and I be- 
lieve it — ^that after even one glass of alcohol, 
or shall we say Scotch whiskey and soda, a 
man's working power is lowered by twenty per 
cent. This is a dreadful thing. After three 
glasses, so it is held, his capacity for sustained 
200 



This Strenuous Age 



rigid thought is cut in two. And after about 
six glasses the man's working power is reduced 
by at least a hundred per cent. He merely sits 
there — in his arm chair, at his club let us say, 
with all power, even all desire to work gone 
out of him, not thinking rigidly, not sustaining 
his thought, a mere shapeless chunk of geniality, 
half hidden In the blue smoke of his cigar. 

Very dreadful, not a doubt. Alcohol Is 
doomed; k is going; It is gone. Yet when I 
think of a hot Scotch on a winter evening, or a 
Tom Collins on a summer morning, or a gin 
Rickey beside a tennis court, or a stein of beer 
on a bench beside a bowling green — I wish 
somehow that we could prohibit the use of al- 
cohol and merely drink beer and whiskey and 
gin as we used to. But these things, It appears, 
interfere with work. They have got to go. 

But turn to the broader and simpler question 
of WORK Itself. In my time one hated it. It 
was viewed as the natural enemy of man. Now 
the world has fallen in love with It. My friends, 
I find, take their deep breathing and their porch 

201 



Frenzied Fiction 



sleeping because It makes them work better. 
They go for a week's vacation In Virginia not 
for Its own sake, but because they say they can 
work better when they get back. I know a man 
who wears very loose boots because he can work 
better In them: and another who wears only 
soft shirts because he can work better in a soft 
shirt. There are plenty of men now who would 
wear dog-harness if they thought they could 
work more In it. I know another man who 
walks away out into the country every Sunday: 
not that he likes the country: he wouldn't rec- 
ognise a bumble bee if he saw it : but he claims 
that if he walks on Sunday his head is as clear 
as a bell for work on Monday. 

Against work Itself, I say nothing. But I 
sometimes wonder If I stand alone in this thing. 
Am I the only person left who hates it? 

Nor Is work all. Take food. I admit, here 
and now, that the lunch I like best — I mean for 
an ordinary plain lunch, not a party — Is a beef- 
steak about one foot square and two inches 
thick. Can I work on It? No, I can't, but I 

202 



This Strenuous Age 



can work in spite of it. That is as much as one 
used to ask, twenty-five years ago. 

Yet now I find that all my friends boast os- 
tentatiously about the meagre lunch they eat. 
One tells me that he finds a glass of milk and a 
prune is quite as much as he cares to take. An- 
other says that a dry biscuit and a glass of wa- 
ter is all that his brain will stand. One lunches 
on the white of an egg. Another eats merely 
the yolk. I have only two friends left who 
can eat a whole egg at a time. 

I understand that the fear of these men is 
that if they eat more than an egg or a biscuit, 
they will feel heavy after lunch. Why they 
object to feeling heavy, I do not know. Per- 
sonally, I enjoy it. I like nothing better than 
to sit round after a heavy lunch with half a 
dozen heavy friends, smoking heavy cigars. 
I am well aware that that is wicked. I merely 
confess the fact. I do not palliate It. 

Nor is food all, nor drink, nor work, nor 
open air. There has spread abroad along with 
the so-called physical efficiency a perfect pas- 
203 



Frenzied Fiction 



,sion for information. Somehow If a man's 
stomach is empty and his head clear as a bell, 
and If he won't drink and won't smoke, he 
reaches out for Information. He wants facts. 
He reads the newspapers all through, instead of 
only reading the headings. He clamours for 
articles filled with statistics about illiteracy and 
alien immigration and the number of battle- 
ships in the Japanese navy. 

I know quite a lot of men who have actually 
bought the new Encyclopaedia Britannlca. What 
is more, they read the thing. They sit in their 
apartments at night with a glass of water at 
their elbow reading the encyclopsedla. They 
say that it is literally filled with facts. Other 
men spend their time reading the Statistical Ab- 
stract of the United States (they say the figures 
in It are great) and the Acts of Congress, and 
the list of Presidents since Washington (or was 
it Washington?) . 

Spending their evenings thus, and topping It 
off with a cold baked apple, and sleeping out in 
the snow, they go to work in the morning, so 
204 



This Strenuoibs Age 



they tell me, with a positive sense of exhilara- 
tion. I have no doubt that they do. But for 
me, I confess that once and for all I am out of 
it. I am left behind. 

Add to It all such rising dangers as total pro- 
hibition, and the female franchise, the daylight 
saving, and eugenic marriage, together with pro- 
portional representation, the Initiative and the 
referendum, and the duty of the citizen to take 
an intelligent interest in politics — and I admit 
that I shall not be sorry to go away from here. 

But before I do go, I have one hope. I un- 
derstand that down In Hayti things are very dif- 
ferent. Bull fights, cock fights, dog fights, are 
openly permitted. Business never begins till 
eleven in the morning. Everybody sleeps after 
lunch, and the bars remain open all night. 
Marriage Is but a casual relation. In fact, the 
general condition of morality, so they tell me, 
is lower in Haytl than It has been anywhere 
since the time of Nero. Me for Hayti. 



205 




XIIL—The Old, Old Story of How 
Five Men Went Fishing' 

^ g ^HIS Is a plain account of a fishing 
party. It Is not a story. There Is 
no plot. Nothing happens In It and 
nobody Is hurt. The only point of 
this narrative Is Its peculiar truth. It not only 
tells what happened to us — ^the five people con- 
cerned in It — but what has happened and is hap- 
pening to all the other fishing parties that at the 
season of the year, from Halifax to Idaho, go 
gliding out on the unruffled surface of our Cana- 
dian and American lakes In the still cool of 
early summer morning. 

We decided to go In the early morning be- 
cause there Is a popular belief that the early 
morning Is the right time for bass fishing. The 
bass Is said to bite In the early morning. Per- 
haps It does. In fact the thing is almost capa- 
ble of scientific proof. The bass does not bite 
206 



How Five Men Went Fishing 

between eight and twelve. It does not bite 
between twelve and six in the afternoon. Nor 
does it bite between six o'clock and midnight. 
All these things are known facts. The infer- 
ence is that the bass bites furiously at about 
daybreak. 

At any rate our party were unanimous about 
starting early. "Better make an early start," 
said the Colonel when the idea of the party was 
suggested. "Oh, yes," said George Popley, 
the Bank Manager, "we want to get right out 
on the shoal while the fish are biting." 

When he said this all our eyes glistened. 
Everybody's do. There's a thrill in the words. 
To "get right out on the shoal at daybreak when 
the fish are biting," is an idea that goes to any 
man's brain. 

If you listen to the men talking in a Pullman 
car, or a hotel corridor, or better still, at the 
little tables in a first-class bar, you will not listen 
long before you hear one say — "Well, we got 
out early, just after sunrise, right on the shoal." 
. . . And presently, even if you can't hear him 
you will see him reach out his two hands and 
207 



Frenzied Fiction 



hold them about two feet apart for the other 
man to admire. He Is measuring the fish. No, 
not the fish they caught; this was the big one 
that they lost. But they had him right up to 
the top of the water : Oh, yes, he was up to the 
top of the water all right. The number of huge 
fish that have been heaved up to the top of the 
water In our lakes Is almost Incredible. Or at 
least It used to be when we still had bar rooms 
and little tables for serving that vile stuff Scotch 
whiskey and such foul things as gin Rickeys and 
John Collinses. It makes one sick to think of 
It, doesn't It? But there was good fishing in 
the bars, all winter. 

But, as I say, we decided to go early In the 
morning. Charlie Jones, the railroad man, 
said that he remembered how when he was a 
boy, up in Wisconsin, they used to get out at five 
In the morning — not get up at five but be on 
the shoal at five. It appears that there is a 
shoal somewhere In Wisconsin where the bass 
lie In thousands. Kernin, the lawyer, said that 
when he was a boy — this was on Lake Rosseau 
208 



How Five Men Went Fisliing 

— they used to get out at four. It seems there 
Is a shoal In Lake Rosseau where you can haul 
up the bass as fast as you can drop your line. 
The shoal is hard to find — very hard. Kernin 
can find it, but it Is doubtful — so I gather — If 
any other living man can. The Wisconsin 
shoal, too, is very difficult to find. Once you 
find It, you are all right; but It's hard to find. 
Charlie Jones can find It. If you were In Wis- 
consin right now he'd take you straight to It, 
but probably no other person now alive could 
reach that shoal. In the same way Colonel 
Morse knows of a shoal In Lake SImcoe where 
he used to fish years and years ago and which, I 
understand, he can still find. 

I have mentioned that Kernin Is a lawyer, and 
Jones a railroad man and Popley a banker. 
But I needn't have. Any reader would take it 
for granted. In any fishing party there Is al- 
ways a lawyer. You can tell him at sight. He 
Is the one of the party that has a landing net and 
a steel rod In sections with a wheel that Is used 
to wind the fish to the top of the water. 

And there is always a banker. You can tell 
209 



Frenzied Fiction 



him by his good clothes. Popley, in the bank, 
wears his banking suit. When he goes fishing 
he wears his fishing suit. It is much the better 
of the two, because his banking suit has ink 
marks on it, and his fishing suit has no fish 
marks on it. 

As for the Railroad Man, — quite so, the 
reader knows it as well as I do, — ^you can tell 
him because he carries a pole that he cut in the 
bush himself, with a ten cent line wrapped 
round the end of it. Jones says he can catch 
as many fish with this kind of line as Kernin can 
with his patent rod and wheel. So he can, too. 
Just the same number. 

But Kernin says that with his patent appara- 
tus if you get a fish on you can •play him. Jones 
says to Hades with playing him : give him a fish 
on his line and he'll haul him in all right. Ker- 
nin says he'd lose him. But Jones says he 
wouldn't. In fact he guarantees to haul the 
fish in. Kernin says that more than once (in 
Lake Rosseau) he has played a fish for over 
half an hour. I forget now why he stopped; 
I think the fish quit playing. 

210 



How Five Men Went Fishing 

I have heard Kernln and Jones argue this 
question of their two rods, as to which rod can 
best pull in the fish, for half an hour. Others 
may have heard the same question debated. I 
know no way by which it could be settled. 

Our arrangement to go fishing was made at 
the little golf club of our summer town on the 
verandah where we sit in the evening. Oh, it's 
just a little place, nothing pretentious : the links 
are not much good for golf ; in fact we don't 
play much golf there, so far as golf goes, and 
of course, we don't serve meals at the club, it's 
not like that, — and no, we've nothing to drink 
there because of prohibition. But we go and 
sit there. It Is a good place to sit, and, after 
all, what else can you do in the present state of 
the law? 

So it was there that we arranged the party. 

The thing somehow seemed to fall into the 
mood of each of us. Jones said he had been 
hoping that some of the boys would get up a 
fishing party. It was apparently the one kind 
of pleasure that he really cared for. For my- 
self I was delighted to get in with a crowd of 

211 



Frenzied Fiction 



regular fishermen like these four, especially as 
I hadn't been out fishing for nearly ten years: 
though fishing is a thing I am passionately fond 
of. I know no pleasure in life like the sensa- 
tion of getting a four pound bass on the hook 
and hauling him up to the top of the water, to 
weigh him. But, as I say, I hadn't been out for 
ten years : Oh, yes, I live right beside the water 
every summer, and yes, certainly, — I am say- 
ing so, — I am passionately fond of fishing, but 
still somehow I hadn't been out. Every fisher- 
man knows just how that happens. The years 
have a way of slipping by. Yet I must say I 
was surprised to find that so keen a sport as 
Jones hadn't been out, — so it presently ap- 
peared, — for eight years. I had imagined he 
practically lived on the water. And Colonel 
Morse and Kernin, — I was amazed to find, — 
hadn't been out for twelve years, not since the 
day (so it came out in conversation) when they 
went out together in Lake Rosseau and Kernin 
landed a perfect monster, a regular corker, five 
pounds and a half, they said: or no, I don't 
think he landed him. No, I remember, he 

212 



How Five Men Went Fishmg 

didn't land him. He caught him, — and he 
could have landed him, — he should have landed 
him, — but he didn't land him. That was it. 
Yes, I remember Kernin and Morse had a slight 
discussion about it, — oh, perfectly amicable, — 
as to whether Morse had fumbled with the net 
— or whether Kernin — the whole argument was 
perfectly friendly — had made an ass of him- 
self by not "striking" soon enough. Of course 
the whole thing was so long ago, that both of 
them could look back on it without any bitter- 
ness or ill nature. In fact it amused them. Ker- 
nin said it was the most laughable thing he ever 
saw in his life to see poor old Jack (that's 
Morse's name) shoving away with the landing 
net wrong side up. And Morse said he'd never 
forget seeing poor old Kernin yanking his line 
first this way and then that and not knowing 
where to try to haul it. It made him laugh to 
look back at it. 

They might have gone on laughing for quite 
a time but Charlie Jones interrupted by saying 
that in his opinion a landing net is a piece of 
213 



Frenzied Fiction 



darned foolishness. Here Popley agrees with 
him. Kernin objects that if you don't use a 
net you'll lose your fish at the side of the boat. 
Jones says no: give him a hook well through 
the fish and a stout line in his hand and that fish 
has got to come in. Popley says so too. He 
says let him have his hook fast through the fish's 
head with a short stout line, and put him (Pop- 
ley) at the other end of that line and that fish 
will come in. It's got to. Otherwise Popley 
will know why. That's the alternative. Either 
the fish must come in or Popley must know why. 
There's no escape from the logic of it. 

But perhaps some of my readers have heard 
the thing discussed before. 

So as I say we decided to go the next morn- 
ing and to make an early start. AH of the boys 
were at one about that. When I say "boys," I 
use the word, as it is used in fishing, to mean 
people from say forty-five to sixty-five. There is 
something about fishing that keeps men young. 
If a fellow gets out for a good morning's fish- 
ing, forgetting all business worries, once in a 
214 



How Five Men Went Fishing 

while — say once In ten years — It keeps him 
fresh. 

We agree to go In a launch, a large launch, — ■ 
to be exact, the largest In the town. We could 
have gone In row boats, but a row boat Is a 
poor thing to fish from. Kernin said that in 
a row boat It is impossible properly to ''^play'' 
your fish. The side of the boat Is so low that 
the fish Is apt to leap over the side Into the boat 
when half "played." Popley said that there Is 
no comfort in a row boat. In a launch a man 
can reach out his feet, and take It easy. Charlie 
Jones said that In a launch a man could rest 
his back against something and Morse said 
that In a launch a man could rest his neck. 
Young inexperienced boys. In the small sense of 
the word, never think of these things. So they 
go out and after a few hours their necks get 
tired; whereas a group of expert fishers In a 
launch can rest their backs and necks and even 
fall asleep during the pauses when the fish stop 
biting. 

Anyway all the "boys" agreed that the great 
advantage of a launch would be that we could 
215 



Frenzied Fiction 



get a man to take us. By that means the man 
could see to getting the worms, and the man 
would be sure to have spare lines, and the man 
could come along to our different places, — we 
were all beside the water, — and pick us up. In 
fact the more we thought about the advantage 
of having a "man" to take us the better we 
liked it. As a boy gets old he likes to have a 
man around to do the work. 

An)rway Frank Rolls, the man we decided to 
get, not only has the biggest launch in town, but 
what is more, Frank knows the lake. We 
called him up up at his boat house over the 
phone and said we'd give him five dollars to 
take us out first thing in the morning provided 
that he knew the shoal. He said he knew it. 

I don't know, to be quite candid about it, 
who mentioned whiskey first. In these days 
everybody has to be a little careful. I imagine 
we had all been thinking whiskey for some time 
before anybody said it. But there is a sort of 
convention that when men go fishing they must 
have whiskey. Each man makes the pretence 

2l6 



How Five Men Went Fishing 

that the one thing he needs at six o'clock in the 
morning is cold raw whiskey. It is spoken of 
in terms of affection. One man says the first 
thing you need if you're going fishing is a good 
"snort" of whiskey: another says that a good 
"snifter" is the very thing and the others agree, 
that no man can fish properly without "a horn," 
or a "bracer" or an "eye-opener." Each man 
really decides that he himself won't take any. 
But he feels that in a collective sense, the "boys" 
need It. 

So it was with us. The Colonel said he'd 
bring along "a bottle of booze." Popley said, 
no, let him bring it; Kernin said let him: and 
Charlie Jones said no, he'd bring it. It turned 
out that the Colonel had some very good Scotch 
at his house that he'd like to bring: oddly 
enough Popley had some good Scotch In his 
house too; and, queer though it is, each of the 
boys had Scotch in his house. When the dis- 
cussion closed we knew that each of the five of 
us was intending to bring a bottle of whiskey. 
Each of the five of us expected the others to 
217 



Frenzied Fiction 



drink one and a quarter bottles in the course of 
the morning. 

I suppose we must have talked on that ve- 
randah till long after one in the morning. It 
was probably nearer two than one when we 
broke up. But we agreed that that made no 
difference. Popley said that for him three 
hours' sleep, the right kind of sleep, was far 
more refreshing than ten. Kernin said that a 
lawyer learns to snatch his sleep when he can, 
and Jones said that in railroad work a man 
pretty well cuts out sleep. 

So we had no alarms whatever about not be- 
ing ready by live. Our plan was simplicity it- 
self. Men like ourselves in responsible posi- 
tions learn to organise things easily. In fact 
Popley says it is that faculty that has put us 
where we are. So the plan simply was that 
Frank Rolls should come along at five o'clock 
and blow his whistle in front of our places, and 
at that signal each man would come down to 
his wharf with his rod and kit and so we'd be 
off to the shoal without a moment's delay. 

The weather we ruled out. It was decided 
218 



How Five Men Went Fishing 

that even If it rained that made no difference. 
Kernln said that fish bite better In the rain. And 
everybody agreed that a man with a couple of 
snorts In him need have no fear of a little rain 
water. 

So we parted, all keen on the enterprise. 
Nor do I think even now that there was any- 
thing faulty or Imperfect In that party as we 
planned It. 

I heard Frank Rolls blowing his infernal 
whistle opposite my summer cottage at some 
ghastly hour In the morning. Even without 
getting out of bed, I could see from the window 
that It was no day for fishing. No, not raining 
exactly. I don't mean that, but one of those 
peculiar days — I don't mean wind — there was 
no wind, but a sort of feeling In the air that 
showed anybody who understands bass fishing 
that it was a perfectly rotten day for going out. 
The fish, I seemed to know It, wouldn't bite. 

When I was still fretting over the annoyance 
of the disappointment I heard Frank Rolls 
blowing his whistle In front of the other cot- 
tages. I counted thirty whistles altogether. 
219 



Frenzied Fiction 



Then I fell into a light doze — not exactly sleep, 
but a sort of doze, — I can find no other word 
for it. It was clear to me that the other "boys" 
had thrown the thing over. There was no use 
in my trying to go out alone. I stayed where 
I was, my doze lasting till ten o'clock. 

When I walked up town later in the morning 
I couldn't help being struck by the signs in the 
butchers' shops and the restaurants, FISH, 
FRESH FISH, FRESH LAKE FISH. 

Where in blazes do they get those fish any- 
way? 



220 



XIV, — Back from the Land 

HAVE just come back — now with the 
closing in of Autumn — to the city. I 
have hung up my hoe in my study; my 
spade is put away behind the piano. I 
have with me seven pounds of Paris Green that 
I had over. Anybody who wants it may have it. 
I didn't like to bury it for fear of its poisoning 
the ground. I didn't like to throw it away 
for fear of its destroying cattle. I was afraid 
to leave it In my summer place for fear that it 
might poison the tramps who generally break in 
in November. I have it with me now. I move 
it from room to room, as I hate to turn my 
back upon It. Anybody who wants It, I repeat, 
can have it. 

I should like also to give away either to the 
Red Cross or to anything else, ten packets of 
radish seed (the early curled variety, I think), 
fifteen packets of cucumber seed (the long suc- 

221 



Frenzied Fiction 



culent variety, I believe it says), and twenty 
packets of onion seed (the Yellow Daiivers, 
distinguished, I understand, for its edible 
flavour and its nutritious properties). It is not 
likely that I shall ever, on this side of the grave, 
plant jonion seed again. All these things I have 
with me. My vegetables are to come after me 
by freight. They are booked from Simcoe 
County to Montreal : at present they are^ I be- 
lieve, passing through Schenectady. But they 
will arrive later all right. They were seen going 
through Detroit last week, moving west. It is 
the first time that I ever sent anything by freight 
anywhere. I never understood before the won- 
derful organisation of the railroads. But they 
tell me that there is a bad congestion of freight 
down South this month. If my vegetables get 
tangled up in that there is no telling when they 
will arrive. 

In other words, I am one of the legion of 
men — quiet, determined, resolute men — who 
went out last spring to plant the land, and who 
are now back. 

222 



Back From the Land 



With me — and I am sure that I speak for 
all the others as well — it was not a question 
of mere pleasure; it was no love of gardening 
for its own sake that inspired us. It was a 
plain national duty. What we said to our- 
selves was: "This war has got to stop. The 
men in the trenches thus far have failed to 
stop it. Now let us try. The whole thing," 
we argued, "is a plain matter of food produc- 
tion." 

"If we raise enough food the Germans are 
bound to starve. Very good. Let us kill 
them." 

I suppose there was never a more grimly de- 
termined set of men went out from the cities 
than those who went out last May, as I did, 
to conquer the food problem. I don't mean to 
say that each and every one of us actually left 
the city. But we all "went forth" in the meta- 
phorical sense. Some of the men cultivated 
back gardens; others took vacant lots; some 
went out into the suburbs; and others, like my- 
self, went right out into the country. 

We are now back. Each of us has with him 
223 



Frenzied Fiction 



his Paris Green, his hoe and the rest of his 
radish seed. 

The time has, therefore, come for a plain, 
clear statement of our experience. We have, 
as everybody knows, failed. We have been 
beaten back all along the line. Our potatoes 
are buried In a jungle of autumn burdocks. Our 
radishes stand seven feet high, uneatable. Our 
tomatoes, when last seen, were greener than 
they were at the beginning of August, and get- 
ting greener every week. Our celery looked 
as delicate as a maidenhair fern. Our Indian 
corn was nine feet high with a tall feathery 
spike on top of that, but no sign of anything 
eatable about it from top to bottom. 

I look back with a sigh of regret at those 
bright, early days in April when we were all 
buying hoes, and talking soil and waiting for 
the snow to be off the ground. The street cars, 
as we went up and down to our offices, were a 
busy babel of garden talk. There was a sort of 
farmer-like geniality in the air. One spoke 
224 



Bach From the Land 



freely to strangers. Every man with a hoe was 
a friend. Men chewed straws in their offices, 
and kept looking out of windows to pretend to 
themselves that they were afraid It might blow 
up rain. "Got your tomatoes In?" one man 
would ask another as they went up in the eleva- 
tor. "Yes, I got mine In yesterday," the other 
would answer, "but I'm just a little afraid that 
this east wind may blow up a little frost. What 
we need now Is growing weather." And the 
two men would drift off together from the ele- 
vator door along the corridor, their heads to- 
gether in friendly colloquy. 

I have always regarded a lawyer as a man 
without a soul. There is one who lives next 
door to me to whom I have not spoken in five 
years. Yet when I saw him one day last spring 
heading for the suburbs in a pair of old trou- 
sers with a hoe in one hand and a box of celery 
plants in the other I felt that I loved the man. 
I used to think that stock brokers were mere 
sordid calculating machines. Now that I have 
seen whole firms of them busy at the hoe, wear- 
ing old trousers that reached to their armpits 
225 



Frenzied Fiction 



and were tied about the waist with a polka dot 
necktie, I know that they are men. I know that 
there are warm hearts beating behind those 
trousers. 

Old trousers, I say. Where on earth did 
they all come from in such a sudden fashion last 
[spring? Everybody had them. Who would 
suspect that a man drawing a salary of ten thou- 
sand a year was keeping in reserve a pair of 
pepper and salt breeches, four sizes too large 
for him, just in case a war should break out 
against Germany! Talk of German mobilisa- 
tion! I doubt whether the organizing power 
was all on their side after all. At any rate it 
is estimated that fifty thousand pairs of old 
trousers were mobilised in Montreal in one 
week. 

But perhaps It was not a case of mobilisation, 
or deliberate preparedness. It was rather an 
illustration of the primitive Instinct that is In 
all of us and that will out in "war time." Any 
man worth the name would wear old breeches 
all the time If the world would let him. Any 
man will wind a polka dot tie round his waist 
226 



Back From the Lmid 



m preference to wearing patent braces. The 
makers of the ties know this. That Is why they 
make the tie four feet long. And In the same 
way If any manufacturer of hats will put on 
the market an old fedora, with a limp rim and a 
mark where the ribbon used to be but Is not — 
a hat guaranteed to be six years old, well weath- 
ered, well rained on, and certified to have been 
walked over by a herd of cattle — that man will 
make and deserve a fortune. 

These at least were the fashions of last May. 
Alas, where are they now? The men that wore 
them have relapsed again Into tailor-made 
tweeds. They have put on hard new hats. 
They are shining their boots again. They are 
shaving again, not merely on Saturday night, 
but every day. They are sinking back Into civi- 
lisation. 

Yet those were bright times and I cannot 
forbear to linger on them. Not the least pleas- 
ant feature was our rediscovery of the morn- 
ing. My neighbour on the right was always 
up at five. My neighbour on the left was out 
227 



Frenzied Fiction 



and about by four. With the earliest Hght of 
day little columns of smoke rose along our 
street from the kitchen ranges where cur wives 
were making coffee for us before the servants 
got up. By six o'clock the street was alive and 
busy with friendly salutations. The milkman 
seemed a late comer, a poor, sluggish fellow 
who failed to appreciate the early hours of the 
day. A man, we found, might live through 
quite a little Iliad of adventure before going 
to his nine o'clock office. 

"How will you possibly get time to put in a 
garden?" I asked of one of my neighbours dur- 
ing this glad period of early spring just before 
I left for the country. "Time I" he exclaimed. 
■"Why, my dear fellow, I don't have to be down 
at the warehouse till eight-thirty." 

Later in the summer I saw the wreck of his 
garden, choked with weeds. "Your garden," I 
said, "Is In poor shape." "Garden 1" he said 
Indignantly. "How on earth can I find time for 
a garden? Do you realise that I have to be 
down at the warehouse at elght-thirtjr?" 
228 



Back From the Land 



When I look back to our bright beginnings 
our failure seems hard Indeed to understand. It 
Is only when I survey the whole garden move- 
ment In melancholy retrospect that I am able 
to see some of the reasons for It. 

The principal one, I think, Is the question of 
the season. It appears that the right time to 
begin gardening Is last year. For many things It 
Is well to begin the year before last. For good, 
results one must begin even sooner. Here, for 
example, are the directions, as I Interpret them, 
for growing asparagus. Having secured a suit- 
able piece of ground, preferably a deep friable 
loam rich In nitrogen, go out three years ago 
and plough or dig deeply. Remain a year in- 
active, thinking. Two years ago pulverise the 
soil thoroughly. Wait a year. As soon as last 
year comes set out the young shoots. Then 
spend a quiet winter doing nothing. The 
asparagus will then be ready to work at this 
year. 

This Is the rock on which we were wrecked. 
Few of us were men of sufficient means tb spend 
229 



Frenzied Fiction 



several years in quiet thought waiting to be- 
gin gardening. Yet that is, it seems, the only 
way to begin. Asparagus demands a prepara- 
tion of four years. To fit oneself to grow 
strawberries requires three years. Even for 
such humble things as peas, beans, and lettuce 
the instructions inevitably read, "plough the soil 
deeply in the preceding autumn." This sets up 
a dilemma. Which is the preceding autumn? 
If a man begins gardening in the spring he is 
too late for last autumn and too early for this. 
On the other hand if he begins in the autumn 
he is again too late; he has missed this sum- 
mer's crop. It is, therefore, ridiculous to be- 
gin in the autumn and impossible to begin in 
the spring. 

This was our first difficulty. But the second 
arose from the question of the soil itself. All 
the books and instructions insist that the selec- 
tion of the soil is the most important part of 
gardening. No doubt it is. But if a man has 
already selected his own back yard before he 
opens the book, what remedy is there? All 
230 



Back From the Land 



the books lay stress on the need of "a deep, 
friable loam full of nitrogen." This I have 
never seen. My own plot of land I found on 
examination to contain nothing but earth. I 
could see no trace of nitrogen. I do not deny 
the existence of loam. There may be such a 
thing. But I am admitting now in all humility 
of mind that I don't know what loam is. Last 
spring my fellow gardeners and I all talked 
freely of the desirability of "a loam." My own 
opinion is that none of them had any clearer 
ideas about it than I had. Speaking from ex- 
perience, I should say that the only soils are 
earth, mud and dirt. There are no others. 

But I leave out the soil. In any case we were 
mostly forced to disregard it. Perhaps a more 
fruitful source of failure even than the lack of 
loam was the attempt to apply calculation and 
mathematics to gardening. Thus, if one cab- 
bage will grow in one square foot of ground, 
how many cabbages will grow in ten square feet 
of ground? Ten? Not at all. The answer is 
one. You will find as a matter of practical ex- 
perience that however many cabbages you plant 
231 



Frenzied Fiction 



in a garden plot there will be only one that will 
really grow. This you will presently come to 
speak of as the cabbage. Beside it all the others 
(till the caterpillars finally finish their exist- 
ence) will look but poor, lean things. But the 
cabbage will be a source of pride and an object 
of display to visitors; in fact it would ultimately 
have grown to be a real cabbage, such as you 
buy for ten cents at any market, were it not 
that you inevitably cut it and eat it when it is 
still only half-grown. 

This always happens to the one cabbage that 
is of decent size, and to the one tomato that 
shows signs of turning red (it is really a feeble 
;green-pink) , and to the only melon that might 
have, lived to ripen. They get eaten. No one 
but a practised professional gardener can live 
and sleep beside a melon three-quarters ripe and 
a cabbage two-thirds grown without going out 
and tearing it off the stem. 

Even at that It Is not a bad plan to eat the 
stuff while you can. The most peculiar thing 
about gardening Is that all of a sudden every- 
232 



Back From the Land 



thing is too old to eat. Radishes change over 
night from delicate young shoots not large 
enough to put on the table into huge plants 
seven feet high with a root like an Irish shilla- 
leh. If you take your eyes off a lettuce bed for 
a week the lettuces, not ready to eat when you 
last looked at them, have changed into a tall 
jungle of hollyhocks. Green peas are only 
really green for about two hours. Before that 
they are young peas; after that they are old 
peas. Cucumbers are the worst case of all. 
They change overnight from delicate little bulbs 
obviously too slight and dainty to pick, to old 
cases of yellow leather filled v/ith seeds. 

If I were ever to garden again, a thing which 
is out of the bounds of possibility, I should wait 
until a certain day and hour when all the plants 
were ripe, and then go out with a gun and 
shoot them all dead, so that they could grow no 
more. 

But calculation, I repeat, is the bane of gar- 
dening. I knew among our group of food pro- 
ducers, a party of young engineers, college 

233 



Frenzied Fiction 



men, who took an empty farm north of the 
city as the scene of their summer operations. 
They took their coats off and applied tollege 
methods. They ran out, first, a base line AB, 
and measured off from it lateral spurs MN, 
OP, QR, and so on. From these they took side 
angles with a theodolite so as to get the edges 
of each of the separate plots of their land abso- 
lutely correct. I saw them working at it all 
through one Saturday afternoon in May. They 
talked as they did it of the peculiar ignorance 
of the so-called practical farmer. He never — ' 
so they agreed — uses his head. He never — I" 
think I have their phrase correct — stops to 
think. In laying out his ground for use, it never 
occurs to him to try to get the maximum re- 
sult from a given space. If a farmer would only 
realise that the contents of a circle represent 
the maximum of space enclosable in a given 
perimeter, and that any one circle Is merely a 
function of its own radius, what a lot of time 
he would save. 

These young men that I speak of laid out 
their field engineer-fashion with little white 
234 



Bach From the Land 



posts at even distances. They made a blue- 
print of the whole thing as they planted it. 
Every corner of it was charted out. The yield 
was calculated to a nicety. They had allowed 
for the fact that some of the stuff might fail to 
grow by introducing what they called "a co- 
efficient of error." By means of this and by 
reducing the variation of autumn prices to a 
mathematical curve, those men not only knew 
already in the middle of May the exact yield of 
their farm to within half a bushel (they al- 
lowed, they said, a variation of half a bushel 
per fifty acres), but they knew beforehand 
within a few cents the market value that they 
would receive. The figures, as I remember 
them, were simply amazing. It seemed incredi- 
ble that fifty acres could produce so much. Yet 
there were the plain facts in front of one, cal- 
ailated out. The thing amounted practically 
to a revolution in farming. At least it ought to 
have. And it would have if those young men 
had come back again to hoe their field. But 
it turned out, most unfortunately, that they were 
busy. To their great regret they were too busy 

235 



Frenzied Fiction 



to come. They had been working under a free 
and easy arrangement. Each man was to give 
what time he could every Saturday. It was left 
to every man's honour to do what he could. 
There was no compulsion. Each man trusted 
the others to be there. In fact the thing was 
not only an experiment in food production, it 
was also a new departure In social co-operation. 
The first Saturday that those young men 
worked there were, so I have been told, seventy- 
five of them driving In white stakes and run- 
ning lines. The next Saturday there were fif- 
teen of them planting potatoes. The rest were 
busy. The week after that there was one man 
hoeing weeds. After that silence fell upon the 
deserted garden, broken only by the cry of the 
chick-a-dee and the choo-choo feeding on the 
waving heads of the thistles. 

But I have indicated only two or three of the 
ways of failing at food production. There are 
ever so many more. What amazes me Is, in re- 
turning to the city, to find the enormous quanti- 
ties of produce of all sorts offered for sale in 
236 



Bach From the Land 



the markets. It is an odd thing that last spring, 
by a queer oversight, we never thought, any of 
us, of this process of increasing the supply. If 
every patriotic man would simply take a large 
basket and go to the market every day and 
buy all that he could carry away there need be 
no further fear of a food famine. 

And, meantime, my own vegetables are on 
their way. They are in a soap box with bars 
across the top, coming by freight. They weigh 
forty-six pounds, including the box. They rep- 
resent the result of four months' arduous toil 
in sun, wind, and storm. Yet it Is pleasant 
to think that I shall be able to feed with them 
some poor family of refugees during the rigour 
of the winter. Either that or feed them to the 
hens. I certainly won't eat the rotten things 
myself. 



237 



JCV. — The Perplexity Column 

AS DONE BY THE JADED JOURNALIST 

INSTANTANEOUS ANSWERS TO ALL 
QUESTIONS 

(All questions written out legibly with the 
name and address of the sender and ac- 
companied by one dollar, answered immedi- 
ately and without charge.) 

Harvard Student asks: 

Can you tell me the date at which, or on 
which, Oliver Cromwell's father died? 
Answer. No, I can't. 

Student of Mathematics asks: 

Will you kindly settle a matter Involving a 

wager between myself and a friend? A. bet 

B. that a pedestrian in walking downhill over 

a given space and alternately stepping with 

238 



The Perplexity Column 



either foot, covers more ground than a man 
coasting over the same road on a bicycle. 
Which of us wins? 

Answer. I don't understand the question, 
and I don't know which of you is A. 

Chess-player asks: 

Is the Knight's gambit recognised now as 
a permissible opening in chess? 
Answer. I don't play chess. 

Reuben Booh asks: 

For some time past I have been calling upon 
a young lady friend at her house evenings and 
going out with her to friends' nights. I should 
hke to know if it would be all right to ask to 
take her alone with me to the theatre? 

Answer. Certainly not. This column Is 
very strict about these things. Not alone. Not 
for a moment. It is better taste to bring your 
father with you. 

Auction asks: 
In playing bridge please tell me whether the 
third or the second player ought to discard 
239 



Frenzied Fiction 



from weakness on a long suit when trumps 
have been twice round and the lead is with 
dummy. 

Answer. Certainly. 

Lady of Society asks: 

Can you tell me whether the widow of a 
marquis is entitled to go in to dinner before 
the eldest daughter of an earl? 

Answer. Ha ! ha I This is a thing we 
know — something that we do know. You put 
your foot in it when you asked us that. We 
have lived this sort of thing too long ever to 
make any error. The widow of a marquis, 
whom you should by rights call a marchioness 
dowager (but we overlook it — you meant no 
harm) is entitled (in any hotel that we know 
or frequent) to go in to dinner whenever, and 
as often, as she likes. On a dining car the 
rule is the other way. 

Vassar Girl asks: 

What is the date of the birth of Caracalla? 
Answer. — I couldn't say. 
240 



The Perpleucity Column 



Lexicographer asks: 

Can you tell me the proper way to spelt 
"dog"? 

Answer. Certainly. "Dog" should be 
spelt, properly and precisely, "dog." When it 
is used in the sense to mean not *'a dog" or ''one 
dog" but two or more dogs — in other words 
what we grammarians are accustomed to call 
the plural — it is proper to add to it the diph- 
thong, s, pronounced with a hiss like z in soup. 

But for all these questions of spelling your 
best plan is to buy a copy of Our Standard Dic- 
tionary, published in ten volumes, by this news- 
paper, at forty dollars. 

Ignoramus asks: 
Can you tell me how to spell "cat" ? 
Answer. Didn't you hear what we just said 
about how to spell "dog" ? Buy the Dictionary. 

Careworn Mother asks: 
I am most anxious to find out the relation of 
tke earth's diameter to its circumference. Can 
y««, or any of your readers, assist me in it? 
241 



Frenzied Fiction 



Answer. The earth's circumference Is esti- 
mated to be three decimal one four one five 
nine of Its diameter, a fixed relation Indicated 
by the Greek letter pi. If you like we will tell 
you what pi Is. Shall we ? 

''Brink of Suicide" writes: 

Can you, will you, tell me what Is the Sanjak 
of Novl Bazar? 

Answer. The Sanjak of Novl Bazar is 
bounded on the north by its northern frontier, 
cold and cheerless, and covered during the 
winter with deep snow. The east of the San- 
jak occupies a more easterly position. Here 
the sun rises — at first slowly, but gathering 
Speed as it goes. After having traversed the 
entire width of the whole Sanjak, the mag- 
nificent orb, slowly and regretfully, sinks into 
the west. On the south, where the soil is more 
fertile and where the land begins to be worth 
occupying, the Sanjak Is, or will be, bounded 
by the British Empire. 



242 



XVI, — Simple Stories of Success 
or How to Succeed in Life 

LET me begin with a sort of parable. 
Many years ago when I was on the 
staff of a great public school, we en- 
gaged a new swimming master. 
He was the most successful man in that ca- 
pacity that we had had for years. 

Then one day it was discovered that he 
couldn't swim. 

He was standing at the edge of the swim- 
ming tank explaining the breast stroke to the 
boys in the water. 

He lost his balance and fell in. He was 
drowned. 

Or no, — he wasn't drowned, — I remember, 
<!^--he was rescued by some of the pupils whom 
he had taught to swim. 

After he was resuscitated by the boys — it 

243 



Frenzied Fiction 



was one of the things he had taught them — 
the school dismissed him. 

Then some of the boys who were sorry for 
him taught him how to swim, and he got a new 
job as a swimming master in another place. 

But this time he was an utter failure. Fie 
swam well, but they said he couldn't teach,- 

So his friends looked about to get him a new 
job. This was just at the time when the bicycle 
craze came in. They soon found the man a 
position as an instructor in bicycle riding. As 
he had never been on a bicycle in his life, he 
made an admirable teacher. He stood fast on 
the ground and said, "Now then, all you need 
is confidence." 

Then one day he got afraid that he might 
be found out. So he went out to a quiet place 
and got on a bicycle, at the top of a slope, to 
learn to ride it. The bicycle ran away with 
him. But for the skill and daring of one of 
his pupils, who saw him and rode after him, 
he would have been killed. 

This story, as the reader sees, Is endless. 
Suffice it to say that the man I speak of is ?iow 
244 



Simple Stories of Success 



m an aviation school teaching people to fly. 
They say he is one of the best aviators that 
ever walked. 

According to all the legends and story books, 
the principal factor in success is perseverance. 
Personally, I think there is nothing in it. If 
anything, the truth lies the other way. 

There is an old motto that runs, "// at first 
you don't succeed, try, try again." This is non- 
sense. It ought to read — *'If at first you don't 
succeed, quit, quit, at once." 

If you can't do a thing, more or less, the 
first time you try, you will never do it. Try 
something else while there is yet time. 

Let me illustrate this with a story. 

I remember, long years ago, at a little school 
that I attended in the country, we had a school- 
master, who used perpetually to write on the 
blackboard, in a copperplate hand, the motto 
that I have just quoted: — 

"// at first you don't succeed^ 

Try, try, aaainf^ 

1Ai{ 



Frenzied Fiction 



He wore plain clothes and had a hard, de- 
termined face. He was studying for some sort 
of preliminary medical examination, and was 
saving money for a medical course. Every 
now and then he went away to the city and 
tried the examination: and he always failed. 
Each time he came back, he would write up on 
the blackboard — 

''Try, try, again." . 

And always he looked grimmer and more de- 
termined than before. The strange thing was 
that with all his industry and determination, 
he would break out every now and then into 
drunkenness, and lie round the tavern at the 
crossroads, and the school would be shut for 
two days. Then he came back, more fiercely 
resolute than ever. Even children could see 
that the man's life was a fight. It was like the 
battle between Good and Evil in Milton's epics. 
Well, after he had tried it four times, the 
schoolmaster at last passed the examination; 
and he went away to the city in a suit of store 
246 



Simple Stories of Success 



clothes, with eight hundred dollars that he had 
saved up, to study medicine. Now it happened 
that he had a brother who was not a bit like 
himself, but was a sort of ne'er-do-well, always 
hard-up and sponging on other people, and 
never working. 

And when the schoolmaster came to the city 
and his brother knew that he had eight hun- 
dred dollars, he came to him and got him drink- 
ing and persuaded him to hand over the eight 
hundred dollars and to let him put it into the 
Louisiana State lottery. In those days the 
Louisiana Lottery had not yet been forbidden 
the use of the mails, and you could buy a ticket 
for anything from one dollar up. The Grand 
Prize was two hundred thousand dollars, and 
the Seconds were a hundred thousand each. ' 

So the brother persuaded the schoolmaster to 
put the money in. He said he had a system for 
buying only the tickets with prime numbers, 
that won't divide by anything, and that it must 
win. He said it was a mathematical certainty, 
and he figured It out with the schoolmaster in 
the back room of a saloon, with a box of domi- 
247 



Frenzied Fiction 



noes on the table to show the plan of it. He 
told the schoolmaster that he himself would 
only take ten per cent of what they made, as a 
commission for showing the system, and the 
schoolmaster could have the rest. 

So in a mad moment, the schoolmaster hand- 
ed over his roll of money, and that was the 
last he ever saw of it. 

The next morning when he was up he was 
fierce with rage and remorse for .vhat he had 
done. He could not go back to the school, 
and he had no money to go forward. So he 
stayed where he was in the little hotel where he 
had got drunk, and went on drinking. He 
looked so fierce and unkempt, that in the hotel 
they were afraid of him, and the bartenders 
watched him out of the corners of their eyes 
wondering what he would do: because they 
knew that there was only one end possible, and 
they waited for it to come. And presently it 
came. One of the bartenders went up to the 
schoolmaster's room to bring up a letter, and 
he found him lying on the bed with his face 
grey as ashes, and his eyes looking up at the 
248 



Simple Stories of Success 



ceiling. Fie was stone dead. Life had beaten 
him. 

And the strange thing was that the letter that 
the bartender carried up that morning was from 
the management of the Louisiana Lottery. It 
contained a draft on New York, signed by the 
treasurer of the State of Louisiana, for two 
hundred thousand dollars. The schoolmaster 
had won the Grand Prize. 

The above story, I am afraid, is a little 
gloomy. I put it down merely for the moral 
it contained, and I became so absorbed in tell- 
ing it that I almost forgot what the moral was 
that It was meant to convey. But I think the 
idea Is that if the schoolmaster had long before 
abandoned the study of medicine, for which he 
was not fitted, and gone in, let us say, for play- 
ing the banjo, he might have become end-man 
in a minstrel show. Yes, that was It. 

Let me pass on to other elements in success. 

I suppose that anybody will admit that the 
peculiar quality that is called initiative, — ^the 
ability to act promptly on one's own judgment, 
— is a factor of the highest importance. 
249 



Frenzied Fiction 



I have seen this illustrated two or three times 
in a very striking fashion. 

I knew, in Toronto, — it is long years ago, — > 
a singularly bright young man whose name was 
Robinson. He had had some training in the 
iron and steel business, and when I knew him 
was on the look-out for an opening. 

I met him one day in a great hurry, with a 
valise in his hand. 

"Where are you going?" I asked. 

"Over to England," he said. "There Is a 
firm in Liverpool that have advertised that they 
want an agent here, and I'm going over to apply 
for the job." 

"Can't you do it by letter?"" I asked. 

"That's just it," said Robinson, with a 
chuckle, "all the other men will apply by let- 
ter. I'll go right over myself and get there 
as soon or sooner than the letters. I'll be the 
man on the spot, and I'll get the job." 

He was quite right. He went over to Liver- 
pool, and was back in a fortnight with English 
clothes and a big salary. 

But I cannot recommend his story to my 
250 



Simple Stories of Success 



friends. In fact, It should not be told too 
freely. It is apt to be dangerous. 

I remember once telling this story of Robin- 
son to a youn^ man called Tomlinson, who was 
out of a job. Tomlinson had a head two sizes 
too big, and a face like a bun. He had lost 
three jobs in a bank and two in a broker's of- 
fice, but he knew his work, and on paper he 
looked a good man. 

I told him about Robinson, to encourage him, 
and the story made a great impression. 

"Say, that was a great scheme, eh?" he kept 
repeating. He had no command of words, and 
always said the same thing over and over. 

A few days later I met Tomlinson on the 
street with a valise in his hand. 

"Where are you going?" I asked. 

"I'm off to Mexico," he answered. "They're 
advertising for a Canadian teller for a bank in 
Tuscapulco. I've sent my credentials down, 
and I'm going to follow them right up in per- 
son. In a thing like this, the personal element 
is everything." 

So Tomlinson went down to Mexico and he 
251 



Frenzied Fiction 



travelled by sea to Mexico City, and then with 
a mule train to Tuscapulco. But the mails, with 
his credentials went by land and got there two 
days ahead of him. 

When Tomlinson got to Tuscapulco he went 
into the bank and he spoke to the junior man- 
ager and told him what he came for. "I'm 

awfully sorry," the junior manager said, "I'm 
afraid that this post has just been filled." Then 
he went into an inner room to talk with the 
manager. "The tellership that you wanted a 
Canadian for," he asked, "didn't you say that 
you have a man alreadj/-?" 

"Yes," said the manager, "a brilliant young 
fellow from Toronto; his name is Tomlinson, 
I have his credentials here — a first class man, 
I've wired him to come right along, at our ex- 
pense, and we'll keep the job open for him ten 
days." 

"There's a young man outside," said the jun- 
ior, "who wants to apply for the job." 

"Outside?" exclaimed the manager. "How 
did he get here?" 

252 



le Stoiics of Success 



"Came in on tlie mule train this morning: 
says he can do the work and wants the job." 

"What's he like?" asked the manager. 

The junior shook his head. "Pretty dusty 
looking customer," he said; "shifty looking.' 

"Same old story," murmured the manager 
"It's odd how these fellows drift down here 
isn't it? Up to something crooked at home 
I suppose. Understands the working of a bank 
eh? I guess he understands it a little too well 
for my taste. No, no," he continued, "tapping 
the papers that lay on the table, "now that 
we've got a first class man like Tomlinson, let's 
hang on to him. We can easily wait ten days, 
and the cost of the journey is nothing to the 
bank as compared with getting a man of Tom- 
linson's stamp. And, by the way, you might 
telephone to the Chief of Police and get him 
to see to It that this loafer gets out of town 
straight off." 

So the Chief of Police shut up Tomlinson in 
the calaboose and then sent him down to Mex- 
ico City under a guard. By the time the police 
were done with him he was dead broke, and 

253 



Frenzied Fiction 



It took him four months to get back to To- 
ronto; when he got there, the place in Mexico 
had been filled long ago. 

But I can imagine that some of my readers 
might suggest that I have hitherto been dealing 
only with success in a very limited way, and 
that more interest would lie in discussing how 
the really great fortunes are made. 

Everybody feels an instinctive interest in 
knowing how our great captains of industry, 
our financiers and railroad magnates made their 
money. 

Here the explanation is really a very simple 
one. There is, in fact, only one way to amass 
a huge fortune in business or railway manage- 
ment. One must begin at the bottom. One 
must mount the ladder from the lowest rung. 
But this lowest rung is everything. Any man 
who can stand upon it with his foot well poised, 
his head erect, his arms braced and his eye di- 
rected upward, will inevitably mount to the 
top. 

But after all — I say this as a kind of after- 
254 



Simple Stories of Success 



thought In conclusion. Why bother with suc- 
cess at all? I have observed that the successful 
people get very little real enjoyment out of 
life. In fact the contrary is true. If I had 
to choose — with an eye to having a really pleas- 
ant life — between success and ruin, I should 
prefer ruin every time. I have several friends 
who are completely ruined — some two or three 
times — in a large way of course ; and I jfind that 
if I want to get a really good dinner, where 
the champagne is just as it ought to be, and 
where hospitality is unhindered by mean 
thoughts of expense, I can get it best at the 
house of a ruined man. 



255 



XVlI—ln Dry Toronto 

A LOCAL STUDY OF A UNIVERSAL TOPIC 

NOTE — Our readers — our numerous read- 
ers — who live in Equatorial Africa,, may read 
this under the title "In Dry Timhucto" ; those 
who live in Central America will kindly call it 
"In Dry Tehauntepec." 

IT may have been, for aught I know, the 
change from a wet to a dry atmosphere. 
I am told that, biologically, such things 
profoundly affect the human system. 
At any rate I found it impossible that night 
— I was on the train from Montreal to 
Toronto — to fall asleep. 

A peculiar wakefulness seemed to have 
seized upon me, which appeared, moreover, to 
afflict the other passengers as well. In the 
darkness of the car I could distinctly hear 
ikem groaning at intervals. "Are they ill?" 
256 



In Dry Toronto 



I asked, through the curtains, of the porter 
as he passed. "No, sir," he said, "they're not 
ill. Those is the Toronto passengers." "All 
in this car?" I asked. "All except that gen'l- 
man you may have heard singing in the smok- 
ing compartment. He's booked through to 
Chicago." 

But, as is usual in such cases, sleep came at 
last with unusual heaviness. I seemed oblit- 
erated from the world till, all of a sudden, I 
found myself, as it were, up and dressed and 
seated in the observation car at the back of 
the train, awaiting my arrival. 

"Is this Toronto?" I asked of the Pullman 
conductor, as I peered through the window of 
the car. 

The conductor rubbed the pane with his 
finger and looked out. "I think so," he said. 

"Do we stop here?" I asked. 

"I think we do this morning," he answered. 
"I think I heard the conductor say that they 
have a lot of milk cans to put off here this 
morning. I'll just go and find out, sir." 
257 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Stop here!" broke in an irascible-looking 
gentleman in a grey tweed suit who was sitting 
in the next chair to mine. "Do they stop here? 
I should say they did indeed. Don't you 
know," he added, turning to the Pullman con- 
ductor, "that any train is compelled to stop 
here. There's a bye-law, a municipal bye-law 
of the City of Toronto, compelling every train 
to stop?" 

"I didn't know it," said the conductor 
humbly. 

"Do you mean to say," continued the irasci- 
ble gentleman, "that you have never read the 
bye-laws of the City of Toronto?" 

"No, sir," said the conductor. 

"The ignorance of these fellows," said the 
man in grey tweed, swinging his chair round 
again towards me. "We ought to have a bye- 
law to compel them to read the bye-laws. I 
must start an agitation for it at once." Here 
he took out a little red notebook and wrote 
something in it, murmuring — "We need a new 
agitation anyway." 

258 



In Dry Toronto 



Presently he shut the book up with a snap. 
I noticed that there was a sort of peculiar 
alacrity in everything he did. 

"You, sir," he said, "have, of course, read 
our municipal bye-laws?" 

"Oh, yes," I answered. "Splendid, aren't 
they? They read liKe a romance." 

"You are most flattering to our city," said 
the irascible gentleman with a bow. "Yet you, 
sir, I take it, are not from Toronto." 

"No," I answered, as humbly as I could, 
"Tm from Montreal." 

"Ah!" said the gentleman, as he sat back 
and took a thorough look at me. "From 
Montreal? Are you drunk?" 

"No," I rephed, "I don't think so." 

"But you are suffering for a drink," said my 
new acquaintance eagerly. "You need it, eh? 
You feel already a kind of craving, eh what?" 

"No," I answered. "The fact is it's rather 
early in the morning " 

"Quite so," broke in the irascible gentleman, 
"but I understand that in Montreal all the 
259 



Frenzied Fiction 



saloons are open at seven, and even at that 
hour are crowded, sir, crowded." 

I shook my head. "I think that has been 
exaggerated," I said. "In fact, we always try 
to avoid crowding and jostling as far as pos- 
sible. It is generally understood, as a matter 
of politeness, that the first place in the line 
is given to the clergy, the Board of Trade, and, 
the heads of the universities." 

"Is it conceivable!" said the gentleman in 
grey. "One moment, please, till I make a note. 
'All clergy (I think you said all, did you not?) 
drunk at seven in the morning.' Deplorable! 
But here we are at the Union Station— com- 
modious, is it not? Justly admired, in fact, all 
over the known world. Observe" — he con- 
tinued as we alighted from the train and made 
our way into the station — "the upstairs and 
the downstairs, connected by flights of stairs — 
quite unique and most convenient — if you don't 
meet your friends downstairs all you have to 
do is to look upstairs. If they are not there, 
you simply come down again. But stop, you 
260 



In Dry Toronto 



are going to walk up the street? I'll go with 
you." 

At the outer door of the station — just as I 
had remembered it — stood a group of hotel 
bus-men and porters. 

But how changed! 

They were like men blasted by a great sor- 
row. One, with his back turned, was leaning 
against a post, his head buried on his arm. 

"Prince George Hotel" — he groaned at 
intervals, "Prince George Hotel." 

Another was bending over a little handrail, 
his head sunk, his arms almost trailing to the 
ground. 

"King Edward"— he sobbed, "King Ed- 
ward." 

A third, seated on a stool, looked feebly up, 
with tears visible in his eyes. 

"Walker House" — he moaned. "First 

Class accommodation for " then he broke 

down and cried. 

"Take this handbag," I said to one of the 
men, "to the Prince George." 

The man ceased his groaning for a moment 
261 



Frenzied Fiction 



and turned to me with something like passion. 

"Why do you come to us?" he protested. 
"Why not go to one of the others. Go to 
him*' he added, as he stirred with his foot a 
miserable being who lay huddled on the ground 
and murmured at intervals, "Queen's ! Queen's 
Hotel." 

But my new friend, who stood at my elbow, 
came to my rescue. 

"Take his bag," he said, "youVe got to. 
You know the bye-law. Take it or I'll call a 
policeman. You know me. My name's Nar- 
rowpath. I'm on the council." 

The man touched his hat and took the bag 
with a murmured apology. 

"Come along," said my companion, whom I 
now perceived to be a person of dignity and 
civic importance. "I'll walk up with you, and 
show you the city as we go," 

We had hardly got well upon the street be- 
fore I realised the enormous change that total 
prohibition had effected. Everywhere were the 
bright smiling faces of working people, laugh- 
ing and singing at their tasks, and, early though 
262 



In Dry Toronto 



it was, cracking jokes and asking one another 
riddles as they worked. 

I noticed one man, evidently a city employee, 
in a rough white suit, busily cleaning the street 
with a broom and singing to himself — 

"How does the little busy bee improve the 
shining hour." Another employee, who was 
handling a little hose was singing — ''Little 
drops of water, little grains of sand, Tra, la, 
la, la, la la. Prohibition' s grand." 

"Why do they sing?" I asked. "Are they 
crazy?" 

"Sing?" said Mr. Narrowpath. "They 
can't help it. They haven't had a drink of 
whiskey for four months." 

A coal cart went by with a driver, no longer 
grimy and smudged, but neatly dressed with 
a high white collar and a white silk tie. 

My companion pointed at him as he passed. 
"Hasn't had a glass of beer for four months," 
he said. "Notice the difference. That man's 
work is now a pleasure to him. He used to 
spend all his evenings sitting round in the back 
263 



Frenzied Fiction 



parlours of the saloons beside the stove. Now 
what do you think he does?" 

"I have no idea." 

"Loads up his cart with coal and goes for a 
drive — out in the country. Ah, sir, you who 
live still under the curse of the whiskey traf- 
fic, little know what a pleasure work itself be- 
comes when drink and all that goes with it is 
eliminated. Do you see that man, on the other 
side of the street, with the tool bag?" 

"Yes," I said, "a plumber, is he not?" 

"Exactly, a plumber — used to drink heavily 
— couldn't keep a job more than a week. Now, 
you can't c' ' im from his work — came to 
my house t pipe under the kitchen sink 

— wouldn't , c at six o'clock — got in under 
the sink ? gged to be allowed to stay — 

said he h d go home. We had to drag 

him out M rope. But here we are at your 

hotel." 

We enl 

But ho\. changed the place seemed. 

Our feet echoed on the flagstones of the 
deserted rotunda. 

264 



In Dry Toronto 



At the office desk sat a clerk, silent and 
melancholy, reading the Bible. He put a 
marker in the book and closed it, murmuring 
"Leviticus Two." 

Then he turned to us. 

"Can I have a room," I asked, "on the first 
floor?" 

A tear welled up Into the clerk's eye. 

"You can have the whole first floor," he! 
said, and he added, with a half sob, "and the 
second, too, if you like." 

I could not help contrasting his manner with 
what it was in the old days, when the mere 
mention of a room used fr ' |ow him into a 
fit of passion, and whei.j, ^^^d to tell me 

that I could have a cot on,ir, .oof till Tues- 

"i"' .- 

day, and after that, perl^ ^nS' bed in the 
stable. 5 

Things had changed indq / jir 

"Can I get breakfast in i ill room?" I 

inquired of the melancholy j : ; y?. 

He shook his head sadly. , ^,, 

"There is no grill room," he answered. 
"What would you like?" 
265 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Oh, some sort of eggs," I said, "and- 



The clerk reached down below his desk and 
handed me a hard-boiled egg with the shell 
off. 

"Here's your egg," he said, "and there's ice 
water there at the end of the desk." 

He sat back in his chair and went on reading. 

"You don't understand," said Mr. Narrow- 
path, who still stood at my elbow. "All that 
elaborate grill room breakfast business was 
just a mere relic of the drinking days — sheer 
waste of time and loss of efficiency. Go on 
and eat your egg. Eaten it? Now, don't you 
feel efficient? What more do you want? 
Comfort, you say? My dear sir! more men 
have been ruined by comfort — Great Heavens, 
comfort! The most dangerous, deadly drug 
that ever undermined the human race. But, 
here, drink your water. Now you're ready to 
go and do your business, if you have any." 

"But," I protested, "it's still only half-past 
seven in the morning — ^no offices will be 

open " 

266 



In Dry Toronto 



"Open!" exclaimed Mr. Narrowpath. 
"Why! they all open at daybreak now." 

I had, it is true, a certain amount of busi- 
ness before me, though of no very intricate or 
elaborate kind — a few simple arrangements 
with the head of a publishing house such as it 
falls to my lot to make every now and then. 
Yet in the old and unregenerate days it used 
to take all day to do it : the wicked thing that 
we used to call a comfortable breakfast in the 
hotel grill room somehow carried one on to 
about ten o'clock in the morning. Breakfast 
brought with It the need of a cigar for diges- 
tion's sake and with that, for very restfulness, 
a certain perusal of the Toronto Globe^ prop- 
erly corrected and rectified by a look through 
the Toronto Mail. After that it had been my 
practice to stroll along to my publishers' office 
at about eleven-thirty, transact my business, 
over a cigar, with the genial gentleman at the 
head of it, and then accept his invitation to 
lunch, with the feeling that a man who has put 
in a hard and strenuous morning's work is en- 
titled to a few hours of relaxation. 
267 



Frenzied Fiction 



I am inclined to think that in those repre- 
hensible bye-gone times, many other people did 
their business in this same way. 

"I don't think," I said to Mr. Narrowpath 
musingly, "that my publisher will be up as 
early as this. He's a comfortable sort of 
man." 

"Nonsense!" said Mr. Narrowpath. "Not 
at work at half-past seven ! In Toronto ! The 
thing's absurd. Where is the office? Rich- 
mond Street? Come along, I'll go with you. 
I've always a great liking for attending to 
other people's business." 

"I see you have," I said. 

"It's our way here," said Mr. Narrowpath 
with a wave of his hand. "Every man's busi- 
ness, as we see it, is everybody else's business. 
Come along, you'll be surprised how quickly 
your business will be done." 

Mr. Narrowpath was right. 

My publishers' office, as we entered it, 

seemed a changed place. Activity and efficiency 

was stamped all over it. My good friend the 

publisher was not only there, but there with 

268 



In Dry Toronto 



his coat off, inordinately busy, bawling orders 
(evidently meant for a printing room) through 
a speaking tube. "Yes," he was shouting, "put 
WHISKEY in black letter capitals, old Eng- 
lish, double size, set it up to look attractive, 
with the legend made in Toronto in long 
clear type underneath " 

"Exaise me," he said, as he broke ofiE for a 
moment. "We've a lot of stuff going through 
the press this morning — a big distillery cata- 
logue that we are rushing through. We're do- 
ing all we can, Mr. Narrowpath," he con- 
tinued, speaking with the deference due to a 
member of the City Council, "to boom Toronto 
as a Whiskey Centre." 

"Quite right, quite right!" said my com- 
panion, rubbing his hands. 

"And now, sir," added the publisher, 
speaking with rapidity, "your contract is all 
here — only needs signing — I won't keep you 
more than a moment — write your name here — > 
Miss Sniggins will you please witness this so 
help you God how's everything In Montreal 
good morning." 

269 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Pretty quick, wasn't it?" said Mr. Narrow- 
path, as we stood in the street again. 

"Wonderful I" I said, feeling almost dazed. 
"Why, I shall be able to catch the morning 
train back again to Montreal " 

"Precisely. Just what everybody finds. 
Business done in no time. Men who used to 
spend whole days here, clear out now in fifteen 
minutes. I knew a man whose business effi- 
ciency has so increased under our new regime 
that he says he wouldn't spend more than five 
minutes in Toronto if he were paid to." 

"But what is this?" I asked as we were 
brought to a pause in our walk at a street 
crossing by a great block of vehicles — "What 
are all these drays? Surely, those look like 
barrels of whiskey!" 

"So they are," said Mr. Narrowpath, proud- 
ly — ''Export whiskey. Fine sight, isn't it? 
— must be what ? — twenty — twenty-five — 
loads of it. This place, sir, mark my words, 
is going to prove, with its new energy and 
enterprise, one of the greatest seats of the dis- 
270 



In Dry Toronto 



tillery business, in fact, the whiskey capital of 
the North " 

"But I thought," I interrupted, much 
puzzled, "that whiskey was prohibited here 
since last September?" 

"Export whiskey — export, my dear sir," 
corrected Mr. Narrowpath. "We don't inter- 
fere, we have never, so far as I know, proposed 
to interfere with any man's right to make and 
export whiskey. That, sir, is a plain matter 
of business; morality doesn't enter into it." 

"I see," I answered. "But will you please 
tell me what is the meaning of this other crowd 
of drays coming in the opposite direction? 
Surely, those are beer barrels, are they not?" 

"In a sense they are," admitted Mr. Nar- 
rowpath. "That is, they are import beer. It 
comes in from some other province. It was, 
I imagine, made in this city (our breweries, 
sir, are second to none), but the sin of selling 
it" — here Mr. Narrowpath raised his hat 
from his head and stood for a moment in a 
reverential attitude — "rests on the heads of 
others." 

271 



Frenzied Fiction 



The press of vehicles had now thinned out 
and we moved on, my guide still explaining in 
some detail the distinction between business 
principles and moral principles, between whis- 
key as a curse and whiskey as a source of profit, 
which I found myself unable to comprehend. 

At length I ventured to interrupt. 

"Yet it seems almost a pity," I said, "that 
with all this beer and whiskey around an un- 
regenerate sinner like myself should be pro- 
hibited from getting a drink." 

"A drink I" exclaimed Mr. Narrowpath. 
"Well, I should say so. Come right in here. 
You can have anything you want." 

We stepped through a street door into a 
large, long room. 

"Why!" I exclaimed In surprise; "this is a 
bar!" 

"Nonsense !" said my friend. "The bar in 
this province is forbidden. We've done with 
the foul thing, forever. This is an Import 
Shipping Company's Delivery Office." 

"But this long counter?" 

"It's not a counter, it's a desk." 
272 



In Dry Toronto 



"And that bar-tender in his white jacket?" 

"Tut! Tut! He's not a bar-tender. He's 
an Import Goods Delivery Clerk." 

"What'll you have gentlemen?" said the 
Import Clerk, polishing a glass as he spoke. 

"Two whiskey and sodas," said my friend, 
"long ones." 

The Import Clerk mixed the drinks and set 
them on the desk. 

I was about to take one, but he interrupted. 
"One minute, sir," he said. 

Then he took up a desk telephone that stood 
beside him and I heard him calling up 
Montreal. "Hullo, Montreal! Is that Mon- 
treal? Well, say, I've just received an offer 
here for two whiskey and sodas at sixty cents, 
shall I close with it? All right, gentlemen, 
Montreal has effected the sale. There you 
are." 

"Dreadful, isn't it?" said Mr. Narrowpalh. 
"The sunken, depraved condition of your City 
of Montreal; actually selling whiskey. De- 
plorable!" and with that he buried his face in 
the bubbles of the whiskey and soda. 
273 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Mr. Narrowpath," I said, "would you 
mind telling me something? I fear I am a 
little confused, after what I have seen here, as 
to what your new legislation has been. You 
have not then, I understand, prohibited the 
making of whiskey?" 

"Oh, no, we see no harm in that." 

"Nor the sale of it?" 

"Certainly not," said Mr. Narrowpath, "not 
if sold properly^ 

"Nor the drinking of it?" 

"Oh, no, that least of all. We attach no 
harm whatever, under our law, to the mere 
drinking of whiskey." - 

"Would you tell me then," I asked, "since 
you have not forbidden the making, nor the 
selling, nor the buying, nor the drinking of 
whiskey — just what it is that you have pro- 
hibited? What is the difference between 
Montreal and Toronto?" 

Mr. Narrowpath put down his glass on the 
"desk" in front of him. He gazed at me with 
open-mouthed astonishment. 

"Toronto?" he gasped. "Montreal and 
274 



In Dry Toronto 



Toronto! The difference between Montreal 
and Toronto — my dear sir — Toronto — To- 
ronto ^" 

I stood waiting for him to explain. But as 
I did so I seemed to become aware that a 
voice — not Mr. Narrowpath's, but a voice 
close at my ear, was repeating "Toronto — 
Toronto — Toronto ' ' 

I sat up with a start — still in my berth in the 
Pullman car — with the voice of the porter 
calling through the curtains "Toronto — 
Toronto." 

So ! It had only been a dream. I pulled up 
the blind and looked out of the window and 
there was the good old city, with the bright 
sun sparkling on its church spires and on the 
bay spread out at its feet. It looked quite un- 
changed — just the same pleasant old place, as 
cheerful, as self-conceited, as kindly, as 
hospitable, as quarrelsome, as wholesome, as 
moral, as loyal and as disagreeable as ever. 

"Porter," I said, "is it true that there Is 
prohibition here now?" The Porter shook his 
head. "I ain't heard of it," he said. 
275 



X VI I L— Merry Christmas 

MY dear Young Friend," said Father 
Time, as he laid his hand gently 
upon my shoulder, "you are en- 
tirely wrong." 
Then I looked up over my shoulder from 
the table at which I was sitting and I saw him. 
But I had known, or felt, for at least the 
last half hour that he was standing somewhere 
near me. 

You have had, I do not doubt, good reader, 
more than once that strange uncanny feeling 
that there is some one unseen standing be- 
side you — in a darkened room, let us say, with 
a dying fire, when the night has grown late, 
and the October wind sounds low outside, and 
when, through the thin curtain that we call 
Reality, the Unseen World starts for a mo- 
ment clear upon our dreaming sense. 

You hiive had it? Yes, I know you have. 
276 



Merry Christmas 



Never mind telling me about it. Stop. I don't 
want to hear about that strange presentiment 
you had the night your Aunt Eliza broke her 
leg. Don't let's bother with y.our experience. 
I want to tell mine. 

"You are quite mistaken, my dear young 
friend," repeated Father Time, "quite wrong." 

^''Young friend?" I said, my mind, as one's 
mind is apt to in such a case, running to an un- 
important detail. "Why do you call me 
young?" 

"Your pardon," he answered gently — he had 
a gentle way with him, had Father Time, "the 
fault is in my failing eyes. I took you at 
first sight for something under a hundred." 

"Under a hundred?" I expostulated. "Well, 
I should think so!" 

"Your pardon again," said Time, "the fault 
is in my failing memory. I forgot. You sel- 
dom pass that now-a-days, do you? Your life 
is very short of late." 

I heard him breathe a wistful hollow sigh. 
Very ancient and dim he seemed as he stood 
beside me. But I did not turn to look upon 
277 



Frenzied Fiction 



him. I had no need to. I knew his form, in 
the inner and clearer sight of things, as well 
as every human being knows by innate instinct 
the Unseen face and form of Father Time. 

I could hear him murmuring beside me — 
"Short — short, your life is short" — till the 
sound of it seemed to mingle with the measured 
ticking of a clock somewhere in the silent 
house. 

Then I remembered what he had said. 

"How do you know that I am wrong?" I 
asked. "And how can you tell what I was 
thinking?" 

"You said it out loud," answered Father 
Time; "but it wouldn't have mattered, anyway. 
You said that Christmas was all played out 
and done with." 

"Yes," I admitted, "that's what I said." 

"And what makes you think that?" he ques- 
tioned, stooping, so it seemed to me, still 
further over my shoulder. 

"Why," I answered, "the trouble is this. 
I've been sitting here for hours, sitting till 
goodness only knows how far into the night, 
278 



Merry Christmas 



trying to think out something to write for a 
Christmas story. And it won't go. It can't 
be done — not in these awful days." 

"A Christmas Story?" 

"Yes. You see, Father Time," I explained, 
glad with a foolish little vanity of my trade 
to be able to tell him something that I thought 
enlightening, "all the Christmas stuff — stories 
and jokes and pictures — is all done, you know, 
in October." 

I thought it would have surprised him, but I 
was mistaken. 

"Dear me!" he said, "not till October! 
What a rush! How well I remember in An- 
cient Egypt — as I think you call it — seeing 
them getting out their Christmas things, all 
cut in hieroglyphics, always two or three years 
ahead." 

"Two or three years !" I exclaimed. 

"Pooh," said Time, "that was nothing. 
Why in Babylon they used to get their Christ- 
mas jokes ready — all baked in clay — a whole 
Solar eclipse ahead of Christmas. They said, 
I think, that the public preferred them so." 
279 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Egypt?" I said, "Babylon! But surely, 
Father Time, there was no Christmas in those 
days. I thought " 

"My dear boy," he interrupted gravely, 
"don't you know that there has always been 
Christmas?" 

I was silent. Father Time had moved across 
the room and stood beside the fireplace, lean- 
ing on the mantel. The little wreaths of smoke 
from the fading fire seemed to mingle with his 
shadowy outline. 

"Well," he said presently, "what is it that is 
wrong with Christmas?" 

"Why," I answered, "all the romance, the 
joy, the beauty of it has gone, crushed and 
killed by the greed of commerce and the hor- 
rors of war. I am not, as you thought I was, 
a hundred years old, but I can conjure up, as 
anybody can, a picture of Christmas in the good 
old days of a hundred years ago — the quaint 
old-fashioned houses, standing deep among the 
evergreens, with the light twinkling from the 
windows on the snow — the warmth and comfort 
within — ^the great fire roaring on the hearth — 
280 



Merry Christmas 



the merry guests grouped about its blaze and 
the little children with their eyes dancing in 
the Christmas firelight, waiting for Father 
Christmas in his fine mummery of red and white 
and cotton wool to hand the presents from the 
Yule-tide tree. I can see it," I added, "as if 
it were yesterday." 

"It was but yesterday," said Father Time, 
and his voice seemed to soften with the mem- 
ory of by-gone years. "I remember it well." 

"Ah," I continued, "that was Christmas 
indeed. Give me back such days as those, with 
the old good cheer, the old stage coaches and 
the gabled inns and the warm red wine, the 
snap-dragon and the Christmas tree, and I'll 
believe again in Christmas, yes, in Father 
Christmas himself." 

"Believe in him?" said Time, quietly, "you 
may well do that. He happens to be standing 
outside in the street at this moment." 

"Outside?" I exclaimed. "Why won't he 
come in?" 

"He's afraid to," said Father Time. "He's 
281 



Frenzied Fiction 



frightened and he daren't come in unless you 
ask him. May I call him in?" 

I signified assent, and Father Time went to 
the window for a moment and beckoned into 
the darkened street. Then I heard footsteps, 
clumsy and hesitant they seemed, upon the 
stairway. And in a moment a figure stood 
framed in the doorway — the figure of Father 
Christmas. He stood shuffling his feet, a timid, 
apologetic look upon his face. 

How changed he was! 

I had known in my mind's eye, from child- 
hood up, the face and form of Father Christ- 
mas as well as that of Old Time himself. Every- 
body knows, or once knew him, — a jolly little 
rounded man, with a great muffler wound about 
him, a packet of toys upon his back and with 
such merry, twinkling eyes and rosy cheeks as 
are only given by the touch of the driving snow 
and the rude fun of the North Wind. Why, 
there was once a time, not yet so long ago, 
when the very sound of his sleighbells sent the 
blood running warm to the heart. 

But now how changed. 
282 



Merry Christmas 



All draggled with the mud and rain he stood, 
as if no house had sheltered him these three 
years past. His old red jersey was tattered 
in a dozen places, his muffler frayed and 
ravelled. 

The bundle of toys that he dragged with 
him in a net seemed wet and worn till the card- 
board boxes gaped asunder. There were boxes 
among them, I vow, that he must have been 
carrying these three years past. 

But most of all I noted the change that had 
come over the face of Father Christmas. The 
old brave look of cheery confidence was gone. 
The smile that had beamed responsive to the 
laughing eyes of countless children around un- 
numbered Christmas trees was there no more. 
And in the place of it there showed a look of 
timid apology, of apprehensiveness, as of one 
who has asked in vain the warmth and shelter 
of a human home — such a look as the harsh 
cruelty of this world has stamped upon the 
faces of its outcasts. 

So stood Father Christmas shuffling upon 
283 



Frenzied Fiction 



the threshold, fumbling his poor tattered hat 
in his hand. 

"Shall I come in?" he said, his eyes appeal- 
ingly on Father Time. 

"Come," said Time; and added, as he turned 
to speak to me, "Your room is dark. Turn 
up the lights. He's used to light, bright light 
and plenty of it. The dark has frightened him 
these three years past." 

I turned up the lights and the bright glare 
revealed all the more cruelly the tattered figure 
before us. 

Father Christmas advanced a timid step 
across the floor. Then he paused, as if in sud- 
den fear. 

"Is this floor mined?" he said. 

"No, no," said Time soothingly. And to 
me he added in a murmured whisper — "He's 
afraid. He was blown up in a mine in No 
Man's Land between the trenches at Christmas 
time in 19 14. It broke his nerve." 

"May I put my toys on that machine gun?" 
asked Father Christmas timidly, "it will help 
to keep them dry." 

284 



Merry Christmas 



"It is not a machine gun," said Time gently; 
"see, it Is only a pile of books upon the sofa." 
And to me he whispered: "They turned a 
machine gun on him In the streets of Warsaw. 
He thinks he sees them everywhere since 
then." 

"It's all right, Father Christmas," I said, 
speaking as cheerily as I could, while I rose 
and stirred the fire into a blaze, "there are no 
machine guns here and there are no mines. 
This is but the house of a poor writer." 

"Ah," said Father Christmas, lowering his 
tattered hat still further and attempting some- 
thing of a humble bow, "a writer? Are you 
Hans Andersen, perhaps?" 

"Not quite," I answered. 

"But a great writer, I do not doubt," said 
the old man, with a humble courtesy that he 
had learned, it well may be, centuries ago in 
the Yule Tide season of his northern home. 
"The world owes much to its great books. I 
carry some of the greatest with me always. I 
have them here." 

He began fumbling among the limp and tat- 
285 



Frenzied Fiction 



tered packages that he carried — "Look! The 
House that Jack Built — a marvellous, deep 
thing, sir — and this. The Babes in the Wood. 
Will you take it, sir? A poor present, but a 
present still — not so long ago I gave them in 
thousands every Christmas time. None seem 
to want them now." 

He looked appealingly towards Father 
Time, as the weak may look towards the strong, 
for help and guidance. 

"None want them now," he repeated, and I 
could see the tears start in his eyes. "Why 
is it so? Has the world forgotten its sympathy 
with the lost children wandering in the wood?" 

"All the world," I heard Time murmur with 
a sigh, "is wandering in the wood." — But out 
loud he spoke to Father Christmas in cheery 
admonition — "Tut, tut, good Christmas," he 
said, "you must cheer up. Here, sit in this 
chair — the biggest one — so — beside the fire — 
let us stir it to a blaze — more wood — that's 
better — and listen, good old Friend, to the wind 
outside — almost a Christmas wind, is it not? 
286 



Merry Christmas 



Merry and boisterous enough, for all the evil 
times it stirs among." 

Old Christmas seated himself beside the fire, 
his hands outstretched towards the flames. 
Something of his old-time cheeriness seemed 
to flicker across his features as he warmed 
himself at the blaze. 

"That's better," he murmured. "I was cold, 
sir, cold, chilled to the bone: of old I never 
felt it so; no matter what the wind, the world 
seemed warm about me. Why is it not so 
now?" 

*'You see," said Time, speaking low in a 
whisper for my ear alone, "you see how sunk 
and broken he is? Will you not help?" 

"Gladly," I answered, "if I can." 

"All can," said Father Time, "every one 
of us." 

Meantime Christmas had turned towards me 
a questioning eye, in which, however, there 
seemed to revive some little gleam of merri- 
ment. 

"Have you, perhaps," he asked half timidly, 
"schnapps?" 

287 



Frenzied Fiction 



"Schnapps?" I repeated. 

"Aye, schnapps. A glass of It to drink your 
health might warm my heart again, I think." 

"Ah!" I said, "something to drink?" 

"His one failing," whispered Time, "If It Is 
one. Forgive It him. He was used to It for 
centuries. Give it him if you have It." 

"I keep a little In the house," I said, reluct- 
antly perhaps, "in case of illness." 

"Tut, tut," said Father Time, as something 
as near as could be to a smile passed over his 
shadowy face. "In case of Illness! They 
used to say that in ancient Babylon. Here, let 
me pour It for him. Drink, Father Christmas, 
drink!" 

Marvellous It was to see the old man smack 
his lips as he drank his glass of liquor neat 
after the fashion of old Norway. 

Marvellous, too, to see the way in which, 
with the warmth of the fire and the generous 
glow of the spirits, his face changed and 
brightened till the old-time iheerfulaess 
beamed again upon it. 
288 



Merry Christmas 



He looked about him, as it were, with a new 
and growing interest. 

"A pleasant room," he said, "and what bet- 
ter, sir, than the wind without and a brave fire 
within !" 

Then his eye fell upon the mantel piece, 
where lay among the litter of books and pipes 
a little toy horse. 

"Ah!" said Father Christmas, almost gayly, 
"children in the house!" 

"One," I answered, "the sweetest boy in, 
all the world." 

"I'll be bound he is!" said Father Christmas, 
and he broke now into a merry laugh that did 
one's heart good to hear. "They all are! 
Lord bless me ! The number that I have seen, 
and each and every one — and quite right, too 
— ^the sweetest child in all the world. And 
how old, do you say? Two and a half all but 
two months except a week? The very sweetest 
age of all, I'll bet you say, eh, what? They 
all do!" 

AikI the old man broke again into such a. 
289 



Frenzied Fiction 



jolly chuckling of laughter that his snow- 
white locks shook upon his head. 

"But stop a bit," he added. "This horse is 
broken — tut, tut, — a hind leg nearly off. This 
won't do!" 

He had the toy in his lap in a moment, mend- 
ing it. It was wonderful to see, for all his 
age, how deft his fingers were. 

"Time," he said, and it was amusing to 
note that his voice had assumed almost an 
authoritative tone, "reach me that piece of 
string. That's right. Here, hold your finger 
across the knot. There ! Now, then, a bit of 
bee's wax. What? No bee's wax? Tut, tut, 
how ill-supplied your houses are to-day. How 
can you mend toys, sir, without bee's wax? 
Still, it will stand up now." 

I tried to murmur my best thanks. 

But Father Christmas waved my gratitude 
aside. 

"Nonsense," he said. "That's nothing. 

That's my life. Perhaps the little boy would 

like a book too. I have them here in the 

packet. Here, sir, Jack and the Bean Stalky 

290 



Merry Christmas 



a most profound thing. I read it to myself 
often still. How damp it is! Pray, sir, will 
you let me dry my books before your fire?" 

"Only too willingly," I said. "How wet and 
torn they are!" 

Father Christmas had risen from his chair 
and was fumbling among his tattered packages, 
taking from them his children's books, all limp 
and draggled from the rain and wind. 

"All wet and torn!" he murmured, and his 
voice sank again into sadness. "I have carried 
them these three years past. Look! These 
were for little children in Belgium and in 
Serbia. Can I get them to them, think you?" 

Time gently shook his head. 

"But presently, perhaps!" said Father 
Christmas, "if I dry and mend them. Look, 
some of them were inscribed already! This 
one, see you, was written 'With father's love.' 
Why has it never come to him? Is it rain or 
tears upon the page?" 

He stood bowed over his little books, his 
hands trembling as he turned the pages. Then 
he looked up, the old fear upon his face again. 
291 



Frenzied Fictign 



"That sound!" he said. "Listen! It is 
guns — I hear them !" 

"No, no," I said, "it is nothing. Only a 
car passing in the street below." 

"Listen," he said. "Hear that again — 
voices crying!" 

"No, no," I answered, "not voices, only the 
night wind among the trees." 

"My children's voices!" he exclaimed. "I 
hear them everywhere — they come to me in 
€very wind — and I see them as I wander in 
the night and storm — my children — torn and 
dying in the trenches — ^beaten into the ground 
' — I hear them crying from the hospitals — each 
one to me, still as I knew him once, a little 
child. Time, Time," he cried, reaching out 
his arms in appeal, "give me back my chil- 
dren!" 

"They do not die in vain," Time murmured 
gently. 

But Christmas only moaned in answer, 
"Give me back my children!" 

Then he sank down upon his pile of books 
and toys, his head buried in his arms. 
292 



Merry Christmas 



"You see," said Time, "his heart is breaking, 
and will you not help him if you can?" 

"Only too gladly," I replied. "But what is 
there to do?" 

"This," said Father Time, "listen." 

He stood before me grave and solemn, a 
shadowy figure but half seen though he was 
close beside me. The fire-light had died 
down, and through the curtained windows 
there came already the first dim brightening of 
dawn. 

"The world that once you knew," said 
Father Time, "seems broken and destroyed 
about you. You must not let them know — 
the children. The cruelty and the horror and 
the hate that racks the world to-day — ^keep it 
from them. Some day he will know — " here 
Time pointed to the prostrate form of Father 
Christmas — "that his children, that once were, 
have not died in vain : that from their sacrifice 
shall come a nobler, better world for all to 
live in, a world where countless happy children 
shall hold bright their memory forever. But 
for the children of To-day, save and spare 

293 



J<. 



Frenzied Fiction 



them all you can from the evil hate and horror 
of the war. Later they will know and under- 
stand. Not yet. Give them back their Merry 
Christmas and its kind thoughts, and its 
Christmas charity, till later on there shall be 
with it again Peace upon Earth, Good Will to- 
wards Men." 

His voice ceased. It seemed to vanish, as 
it were, in the sighing of the wind. 

I looked up. Father Time and Christmas 
had vanished from the room. The fire was 
low and the day was breaking visibly outside. 

"Let us begin," I murmured. "I will mend 
this broken horse." 



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